Diastereoselective Construction of α-Fluoroalkyl Cycloalkanols via Radical Alkylation of α-Fluoroalkyl Ketones

α-Fluoroalkyl (Rf) alcohols are privileged motifs in drugs and pharmaceutically active compounds.As such,it is highly desirable to develop efficient methods for assembling these scaffolds.Herein,a visible-light-induced cascade radical cyclization of alkenyl fluoroalkyl ketones is developed,producing a variety of decorate α-Rf cycloalkanols in promising yields with up to >20 : 1 dr selectivity.A radical chain mechanism involving an intramolecular radical addition to the α-Rf carbonyl group and a subsequent intermolecular hydrogen atom transfer (HAT) has been proposed.Density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate that a fluorine effect contributes to the radical addition to carbonyls by lowering the π* (C=O) orbital energy of CORf and energy barrier of the HAT between alkoxy radicals and THF,which may be valuable for controllable transformations of fluorinated molecules.