The design and synthesis of highly branched and spherically symmetric fluorinated oils and amphiles

A new surfactant design principle, based on concepts borrowed from protein science, is proposed. Using this principle, a class of highly branched and spherically symmetric fluorinated oils and amphiles has been designed and synthesized, for potential applications in the construction of fluorocarbon nanoparticles. The Mitsunobu reaction was employed as the key step for introducing three perfluoro-tert-butoxyl groups into pentaerythritol derivatives with excellent yields and extremely simple isolation procedures. Due to the symmetric arrangement of the fluorine atoms, each fluorinated oil or amphile molecule gives one sharp singlet 19F NMR signal.