2,2,2-trifluoroethanol or trifluoroethanol is called TFEA or TEF, it is important intermediate of the fluorine-containing aliphatic, it is colorless, it is miscible liquids with water, it has similar odor with ethanol. Due to the strong electron-withdrawing effect of trifluoromethyl, acid of trifluoromethyl is stronger than ethanol, it can generate hydrogen-bonded stable complex (such as: tetrahydrofuran, pyridine) with heterocyclic compound. Due to this unique physical and chemical properties and special molecular structure, it has different performance with other alcohols, it can participate in a variety of organic reactions, it can be oxidized to acetaldehyde trifluoromethyl or trifluoroacetic acid, it can also provide trifluoromethyl, it can participate in the Still-Gennari improvements of Horner-Wadsworth-Emmons reaction. It has wide range of uses in medicine, pesticides, dyes, energy, and other aspects of organic synthesis.
The main use of trifluoroethanol is as anesthetic, at the earliest, fluorine acetylene ether which synthesized by trifluoroethanol and acetylene takes place of bigger side effects of bromine-fluoro alkanes as anesthetic, and then trichloroethanol is used as raw material to develop non-flammable, low toxicity isoflurane alkanes and high performance of the new anesthetic of chlorofluoroalkane. Trifluoroethanol can be introduced into drug structure as trifluoromethyl of functional group, it can generate significant physiological activity, increase fat-soluble of molecules, improve efficacy or reduce side effects of the organism, its synthetic drugs have central nervous system stimulants fluticasone Seoul, substituted pyridines stomach cytoplasmic proton pump inhibitor Lansoprazole and Pariprazole, antiarrhythmic drugs flecainide with amines and analgesic drugs benzodiazepines and dysuria treatment KMD-3212 and so on.
