Herein, we report a photocatalytic synthesis of α-fluoro-β-sulfonyl carbonyl compounds using nucleophilic fluorine sources under photo redox-neutral conditions. The key to this transformation is the generation of α-carbonyl carbocations via single-electron oxidation of β-sulfonyl-α-carbonyl radicals, which are formed through regioselective sulfonyl radical addition to α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds. This method offers efficient and general access to structurally diverse α-fluorinated carbonyl building blocks, expanding the synthetic toolbox for fluorinated molecule construction.
Gong et al. (Mon,) studied this question.