Theoretical study of Lewis acid activation models for hypervalent fluoroiodane reagent: The generality of “F-coordination” activation model.

The bench-stable cyclic hypervalent fluoroiodane reagent ( 1 ) is receiving increasing attention in fluorine chemistry because of its completely new reactivity. Fluorination mediated by reagent 1 generally requires activation by an exogenous Lewis acid. A more complete understanding of the Lewis acid activation model is thus paramount for the development of new strategies involving this reagent. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations herein demonstrate the generality of the “F-coordination” activation mechanism for reagent 1 that we recently showed to be favored over the commonly accepted “O-coordination” activation mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]