Amide-assisted radical strategy: metal-free direct fluorination of arenes in aqueous media

A metal- and initiator-free direct fluorination of arenes with the assistance of an amide group is developed. This reaction proceeded under simple aqueous conditions with good functional group tolerance and ortho – para selectivity, and is highly practical because it could be readily scaled up to a multigram-scale. At this stage, an exclusive mechanism could not be proposed, and several possibilities have been discussed. The possibility of the amide-assisted radical chain mechanism has been supported by experimental and computational investigations as well as a seminal work.