The Perfluorinated Trityl Cation Accessible as a Triflate Derivative

While ultimately not isolable for X-ray structural characterization, the free perfluorinated trityl cation is shown to be observable in neat triflic acid, which represents milder conditions than previous reports of this cation in “magic acid” or oleum. A triflate-bound species can be generated in organic solvents using stoichiometric amounts of triflic acid and is shown to be synthetically viable for hydride abstraction from Et3SiH. It is demonstrated that the para position on the –C6F5 rings is the primary point of attack for decomposition of the cation.