Nomenclature of Organic Fluorine Compounds

Abstract

The nomenclature of compounds containing one or just a few fluorine atoms follows common rules involving use of numerals or Greek letters for the designation of the position of fluorine atoms in organic molecules. A special nomenclature had to be created for compounds in which the number of fluorine atoms prevails over that of hydrogen or halogen* atoms, and consequently, regular names would have been cumbersome [35,36]. The same difficulty arose in compounds where all of the hydrogen atoms bound to carbon had been replaced by fluorine. Such compounds are called “perfluoro” compounds, and the presence of any hydrogen or halogen in the molecule is expressed by the corresponding prefix preceded by a numeral indicating the position of these atoms. The letter H or the prefix “hydryl” (not hydro) stands for hydrogen. The following examples should illustrate the practice: Open image in new window