About 20M kg/y are produced industrially as both a by-product of and precursor to the manufacture of Teflon. It is produced by reaction of chloroform with HF: It is also generated biologically in small amounts apparently by decarboxylation of trifluoroacetic acid.
Historical
Fluoroform was first obtained by Maurice Meslans in the violent reaction of iodoform with dry silver fluoride in 1894. The reaction was improved by Otto Ruff by substitution of silver fluoride by a mixture of mercury fluoride and calcium fluoride. The exchange reaction works with iodoform and bromoform, and the exchange of the first two halogen atoms by fluorine is vigorous. By changing to a two step process, first forming a bromodifluoro methane in the reaction of antimony trifluoride with bromoform and finishing the reaction with mercury fluoride the first efficient synthesis method was found by Henne.
Fluoroform is weakly acidic with a pKa = 25–28 and quite inert. Attempted deprotonation results in defluorination to generate F− and difluorocarbene. Some organocopper and organocadmium compounds have been developed as trifluoromethylation reagents. Fluoroform is a precursor of Ruppert's reagent CF3Si3, which is a source of the nucleophilic CF3− anion.
Greenhouse gas
CHF3 is a potent greenhouse gas. A ton of HFC-23 in the atmosphere has the same effect as 11,700 tons of carbon dioxide. This equivalency, also called a 100-yr global warming potential, is slightly larger at 14,800 for HFC-23. The atmospheric lifetime is 270 years. HFC-23 was the most abundant HFC in the global atmosphere until around 2001, which is when the global mean concentration of HFC-134a, the chemical now used extensively in automobile air conditioners, surpassed those of HFC-23. Global emissions of HFC-23 have in the past been dominated by the inadvertent production and release during the manufacture of the refrigerant HCFC-22. Substantial decreases are evident in developed or Annex 1 countries HFC-23 emissions from the 1990s to the 2000s. The UNFCCC Clean Development Mechanism projects have provided funding and facilitated the destruction of HFC-23 co-produced from a portion of HCFC-22 produced in developing or non-Annex 1 countries since 2003. Developing countries have become the largest producers of HCFC-22 in recent years according to data compiled by the Ozone Secretariat of the World Meteorological Organization. Emissions of all HFCs are included in the UNFCCCs Kyoto Protocol. To mitigate its impact, CHF3 can be destroyed with electric plasma arc technologies or by high temperature incineration.
