Direct and Chemoselective Electrophilic Monofluoromethylation of Heteroatoms (O‑, S-, N‑, P‑, Se-) with Fluoroiodomethane

The commercially available fluoroiodomethane represents a valuable and effective electrophilic source for transferring the CH2F unit to a series of heteroatom-centered nucleophiles under mild basic conditions. The excellent manipulability offered by its liquid physical state (bp 53.4 °C) enables practical and straightforward one-step nucleophilic substitutions to retain the chiral information embodied, thus allowing it to overcome de facto the requirement for fluoromethylating agents with no immediate access. The high-yielding methodology was successfully applied to a variety of nucleophiles including a series of drugs currently in the market.