Difluorocyclopentenone synthesis

A rapid and direct synthetic pathway to substituted difluorocyclopentenones starting with 2,2,2-trifluoroethanol is described. The method leads to a set of fluorocyclopentenones not available through Ichikawa's approach that uses a Nazarov cyclization to prepare fluorinated cyclopentenones. The synthetic approach developed is aimed at developing convenient means for the synthesis of fluorinated carbanucleosides in future work.