Pentakis(trifluoromethyl)phenol from Nitrobenzene

Abstract

In the present work, a two step method for obtaining pentakis(trifluoromethyl)phenol from commercially available starting materials is presented. It has been prepared previously using different methods but all these methods suffer from low yields and/or time-consuming purification processes. Until now, a large amount of pure pentakis(trifluoromethyl)phenol has been difficult to prepare. Sufficiently pure pentakis(trifluoromethyl)phenol is now obtained from pentaiodonitrobenzene in 58% yield and after only one time-consuming sublimation process. The phenol forms during a trifluoromethylation reaction from pentaiodonitrobenzene; iodides are substituted by trifluoromethyl groups, and the nitro group is substituted by an oxygen atom in the oxygen-nucleophilic environment. A small amount of pentakis(trifluoromethyl)phenol is available from the authors on request.