Sulfur in Inorganic Fluorine Chemistry and the Development of a New Class of Weakly Coordinating Anions

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Chemistry of the element fluorine has experienced a remarkable renaissance in the last decade, with spectacular discoveries and the outstanding utility of organofluorine compounds in the pharmaceutical industry. However, incorporation of fluorine almost always requires the use of reactive inorganic fluorinating agents, and to ensure that the full range of fluorinated products is maintained, new fluorinating reagents are always needed. The current proposal focuses on inorganic fluorine chemistry and is exploring fundamental structural and reactivity questions, as well as potential applications of inorganic fluorides. The inorganic fluorine chemistry group in Lethbridge is one of the few groups in the world that can handle highly reactive fluorine chemicals and train students in this important field of chemistry. The new compounds that will be made in this proposed research represent powerful new fluorinating reagents. The proposed research will target three types of fluorine compounds: (i) rhenium sulfide fluorides, (ii) inorganic compounds with pentafluorosulfanyl (-SF5) groups, and (iii) large, weakly coordinating anions. Rhenium sulfide fluorides are reactive compounds that are interesting because of their structural features and of the catalytic reactivity of rhenium sulfide, which were found to have potential as hydrodesulfurization catalysts in the petrochemical industry. Fluoroorganic chemists succeeded in preparing organic SF5 compounds that have uses, for example, as pesticides in agrochemistry and solvents for polymers. Essentially no compounds with SF5 directly attached to a metal are known. Such metal compounds could have significant potential as facile reagents to introduce SF5 groups into organic systems. Weakly coordinating anions have already attracted vast attention in industry. This proposal targets a new class of such anions that could provide advantages to the currently used weakly coordinating anions. Applications of such anions range from lithium ion battery applications to ionic liquids. Ionic liquids are important to further develop "green" chemistry since they are recyclable, do not have any significant vapour pressure and will not cause atmospheric pollution because of evaporation.