Facile synthesis of fluorinated resorcinol-formaldehyde aerogels

In this paper, we have tried to use some unconventional solvents for the preparation of resorcinol formaldehyde (RF) aerogels. The nature of the gelation solvent is found to greatly influence the properties of RF aerogels, e.g., to affect the specific surface area. Fluorination of aerogels' matrix is shown to take place upon synthesis of lyogels in the hexafluoroacetone medium. Fluorination proceeds by the mechanism of electrophilic substitution reaction in a resorcinol cycle with a formation of a C C bond. Unprecedented acceleration of the reaction of formaldehyde with resorcinol to form the RF-resin matrix under the action of hexafluoroacetone is observed. The results presented provide the first example of organic aerogels fluorination by electrophilic substitution reaction. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.