Fluoroalkyl allyl ethers: Useful building blocks for the synthesis of environmentally safer fluorinated multiblock molecules

Novel tri- and pentablock unsymmetrical semifluorinated unbranched ethers of general formula RfCH2O(CH2)3R′f, containing perfluorinated chains with C ≤ 6, have been synthesized and characterized. The synthesis was performed in two steps: perfluoroalkyl iodide addition to fluoroalkyl allyl ethers followed by reduction of the CI bond via heterogeneous catalytic hydrogenation with palladium on carbon.