Design of fluoroketones as efficient reagents for epoxidation reactions in hexafluoropropan-2-ol

Comparative studies on mediated epoxidation reaction using Oxone® as primary oxidant and various fluoroketones as reagents, revealed that ketone is very efficient, in particular when used in hexafluoroisopropanol (HFIP) as solvent. It does not suffer from Baeyer–Villiger reaction and can be used in a catalytic amount (1–5 mol%) with only 1.5 equiv. of Oxone®. The reaction gave good yields of epoxides for a number of olefin substrates, included low reactive ones.