On the hydrolysis of diethyl 2-(perfluorophenyl)malonate

• Ilya V. Taydakov and
• Mikhail A. Kiskin

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2020, 16, 1863–1868, doi:10.3762/bjoc.16.153

• , hydrolysis of the ester with a mixture of HBr and AcOH gave 2-(perfluorophenyl)acetic acid in a good preparative yield of 63%. A significant advantage of this new approach to 2-(perfluorophenyl)acetic acid is that handling toxic substances such as cyanides and perfluorinated benzyl halides is avoided

• . Keywords: decarboxylation; fluorinated aromatic compounds; hydrolysis of esters; 2-(perfluorophenyl)acetic acid; 2-(perfluorophenyl)malonic acid; Introduction 2-Phenylmalonic acid (1) and its esters are useful and versatile intermediates in the synthesis of many practically important compounds, e.g

• malonic acid 2 was isolated from the reaction mixtures; the main part of the original material was recovered. In some experiments, variable amounts of 2-(perfluorophenyl)acetic acid (12) were obtained after acidification of the basic solution. Moreover, noticeable decomposition of 3 was observed along