Hydrogen bonding phase-transfer catalysis
offers a convenient solution
to activate safe and economical metal alkali fluorides for enantioselective
nucleophilic fluorination. Herein, we demonstrate the scalability
of this protocol with the fluorination of 200 g of racemic trans-N,N-dibenzyl-2-bromocyclohexan-1-amine
in a mechanically stirred 1 L glass reactor using 0.5 mol % of a bis-urea
organocatalyst. In these experiments, full conversions were obtained
for high mixing intensities (impeller average shear rate >10 000
s–1; maximum energy dissipation per unit of mass
>300
W/kg). The thermal safety of the reaction was assessed by differential
scanning calorimetry and reaction calorimetry, assigning the reaction
to Stoessel’s critical class 3.