Recent advances in copper-promoted trifluoromethylation reactions

Abstract

Drug molecules that contain trifluoromethyl group can effectively improve their lipophilicity, absorbability and metabolic stability. Thus, considerable attention has been paid to the introduce of trifluoromethyl group into organic molecules. Recently, transition metal-catalyzed trifluoromethylation has been well developed. The cheap and high activity copper catalyst has also been used to access a variety of trifluoromethylation reactions. In this review, we focus the conversion of a number of substrates including halogenated hydrocarbons, boron reagents, C-H compounds, amines and carboxylic acids into the corresponding trifluoromethyl-containing compounds. © 2014 Chinese Chemical Society & SIOC, CAS.