In one general strategy for the synthesis of fluorinated compounds with a specific substitution pattern, the substrate is a cheaply available perfluorinated hydrocarbon.
An example is the conversion of hexafluorobenzene (C6F6) to pentafluorobenzene (C6F5H) by certain zirconocene hydrido complexes.
In this type of reaction the thermodynamic driving force is the formation of a metal-fluorine bond that can offset the cleavage of the very stable C-F bond.
Another reaction type is oxidative addition of a metal into a C-F bond [3] followed by a reductive elimination step in presence of a hydrogen source.
Specific systems that have been reported for fluoroalkyl group HDF are triethylsilane / carborane acid,[4][5] and NiCl2(PCy3)2 / (LiAl(O-t-Bu)3H) [6]