An electrochemical method with the ability to conduct 18F-fluorination of aromatic molecules through direct nucleophilic fluorination of cationic intermediates is presented in this paper. The reaction was performed on a remote-controlled automatic platform. Nucleophilic electrochemical fluorination of tert-butyloxycarbonyl (Boc) protected catechol, an intermediate model molecule for the positron emission tomography (PET) probe (3,4-dihydroxy-6-[18F]fluoro-l-phenylalanine), was performed. Fluorination was achieved under potentiostatic anodic oxidation in acetonitrile containing Et3N · 3HF and other supporting electrolytes. Radiofluorination efficiency was influenced by a number of variables, including the concentration of the precursor, concentration of Et3N · 3HF, type of supporting electrolyte, temperature and time, as well as applied potentials. Radiofluorination efficiency of 10.4 ± 0.6% (n = 4) and specific activity of up to 43 GBq/mmol was obtained after 1 h electrolysis of 0.1 M of 4-tert-butyl-diboc-catechol in the acetonitrile solution of Et3N · 3HF (0.033 M) and NBu4PF6 (0.05 M). Density functional theory (DFT) was employed to explain the tert-butyl functional group facilitation of electrochemical oxidation and subsequent fluorination.

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