Trifluoroacetic acid

Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) is a colorless, fuming liquid with a pungent, acrid odor and high volatility; it has a boiling point of 72 °C and a melting point of −15.3 °C. It is a strong organic acid and fluorinated carboxylic acid, distinguished by the electron-withdrawing trifluoromethyl group. TFA is widely used as a reagent and catalyst in organic synthesis—particularly for deprotection of amino-protecting groups (e.g., Boc, t-Bu esters) in peptide and pharmaceutical manufacturing—and serves as a key intermediate in the production of fluorinated agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, and specialty polymers. Its primary application areas include active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) synthesis, fluorochemical intermediates, and as a solvent or co-solvent in electrophoresis and chromatography.

Trifluoroacetic acid is mainly for the production of new pesticide, medicine and dyes, and also has great potential of application and development in the fields of materials and solvents. Trifluoroacetic acid is mainly used for the synthesis of various kinds of trifluoromethyl group or heterocyclic containing herbicides. It is currently available for synthesizing various kinds of novel herbicide containing pyridyl and qunoilyl; acting as a strong proton acid, it is widely applied as the catalyst for alkylation, acylation, and olefin polymerization of aromatic compound; as a solvent, trifluoroacetic acid is a kind of excellent solvent for fluorination, nitration and halogenations. In particular, the excellent protective effect of its trifluoroacetyl derivatives on hydroxy and amino group has very important application in the synthesis of amino acid and poly-peptide synthesis, for example, the compound can be used as the protection agent of tert-butoxycarbonyl (t-boc) which is used for removing amino acids during the synthesis of poly-peptide. Trifluoroacetic acid, as the raw material and modifier for the preparation of the ion membrane, can largely improve the current efficiency of soda industry and significantly extend the working life of the membrane; trifluoroacetic acid can also be used for synthesizing trifluoro-ethanol, trifluoroacetic acetaldehyde and trifluoroacetic anhydride. At room temperature, the mercury trifluoroacetic acid can have mercury-fluorophenyl be able to have mercuration reaction (electrophilic substitution), and can also convert hydrazone to diazo compound. The lead salt of this acid can convert arene to phenol. In the experiment of reverse phase chromatography for isolation of peptides and proteins, using trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) as the ion-pairing reagents is a common approach. Trifluoroacetic acid in the mobile phase can improve the peak shape and overcome the problem of the peak broadening and trailing issue through interaction with hydrophobic bonded phase and residual polar surface in a variety of models. Trifluoroacetic acid has an advantage over other ion modifier due to that it is volatile and can be easily removed from the sample preparation. On the other hand, the maximum UV absorption peak of trifluoroacetic acid is less than 200 nm, and thus having very small interference on the detection of polypeptides at low wavelengths.
It is colorless, volatile fuming liquid with a similar odor as acetic acid. It is hygroscopic and has stimulating smell. It is miscible with water, fluorinated alkanes, methanol, benzene, ether, carbon tetrachloride and hexane. It can partially dissolve alkane with over six carbons as well as carbon disulfide.

This chemical is included in Fine Chemicals. See more about what is Trifluoroacetic acid and Trifluoroacetic acid SDS information.

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