Fluoroform
chemical compound
Fluoroform, or trifluoromethane, is the chemical compound with the formula CHF3. It is a hydrofluorocarbon as well as being a part of the haloforms, a class of compounds with the formula CHX3 (X = halogen) with C3v symmetry. Fluoroform is used in diverse applications in organic synthesis. It is not an ozone depleter but is a greenhouse gas.
Synthesis
About 20 million kg per year are produced industrially as both a by-product of and precursor to the manufacture of Teflon. It is produced by reaction of chloroform with HF:
CHCl3 + 3 HF → CHF3 + 3 HCl
It is also generated biologically in small amounts apparently by decarboxylation of trifluoroacetic acid.
Historical
Fluoroform was first obtained by Maurice Meslans in the violent reaction of iodoform with dry silver fluoride in 1894. The reaction was improved by Otto Ruff by substitution of silver fluoride by a mixture of mercury fluoride and calcium fluoride. The exchange reaction works with iodoform and bromoform, and the exchange of the first two halogen atoms by fluorine is vigorous. By changing to a two step process, first forming a bromodifluoromethane in the reaction of antimony trifluoride with bromoform and finishing the reaction with mercury fluoride the first efficient synthesis method was found by Henne.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fluoroform” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.