Imperial Chemical Industries Limited

Paul J Townson

Richard Llewellyn Powell

Eric George Hope

John H Holloway

Matthias Rieland

Wolfgang W Dukat

A process for the preparation of an alkane containing fluorine by contacting a halogenated alkane containing at least one hydrogen atom and at least one halogen atom selected from chlorine, bromine and iodine with a transition metal fluoride selected from osmium hexafluoride, iridium hexafluoride, rhenium hexafluoride, ruthenium pentafluoride, chromium pentafluoride, vanadium pentafluoride, rhenium heptafluoride and uranium hexafluoride, whereby to replace at least one hydrogen atom or at least one chlorine, bromine or iodine atom in said halogenated alkane starting material by a fluorine atom. Use of certain of the defined transition metal fluorides, e.g. OsF.sub.6, IrF.sub.6 and ReF.sub.6 allows the selective replacement of halogen by fluorine, while others, e.g. UF.sub.6, VF.sub.5 and ReF.sub.7 allow selective replacement of hydrogen by fluorine.

Chemical process

A process for the preparation of an alkane containing fluorine which process comprises contacting a halogenated alkane containing at least one halogen atom selected from chlorine, bromine and iodine with a transition metal oxide fluoride and replacing at least one chlorine, bromine or iodine atom in said halogenated alkane by a fluorine atom. The transition metal oxide fluoride may be an oxide fluoride of vanadium, molybdenum, tungsten, rhenium or osmium, and the replacement of halogen atom in the starting halogenated alkane is highly selectove where the starting halogenated alkane also contains hydrogen.

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Lancashire, United Kingdom

Paul J Townson