Fluoroacetyl chloride is an acyl chloride

Acyl chloride

In organic chemistry, an acyl chloride is an organic compound with the functional group -CO-Cl. Their formula is usually written RCOCl, where R is a side chain. They are usually considered to be reactive derivatives of carboxylic acids. A specific example of an acyl chloride is acetyl chloride,...

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In 1948, William E. Truce of Purdue University

Purdue University

Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...

 described a synthesis of fluoroacetyl chloride which was undertaken "because of its potential value for introducing the group, —COCH₂F, into organic molecules." In this synthesis, he reacted sodium fluoroacetate with phosphorus pentachloride to obtain the desired compound.