Trifluoramine oxide

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Trifluoramine oxide (F3NO) is an inorganic molecule that acts as a powerful fluorinating agent. It is a colorless gas at standard conditions.

Discovery and production
- Discovered in 1966 by two independent groups.
- Can be made by several methods, including: electric discharge in a mix of oxygen and nitrogen trifluoride; reacting nitric oxide with highly reactive fluorinating agents (like IrF6 or PtF6); burning nitric acid in fluorine and cooling quickly; photochemical reaction of fluorine with nitrosyl fluoride; or thermally decomposing nitrosonium hexafluoronickelate(IV).
- Purified by treatment with potassium hydroxide.

Physical properties
- Chemical formula: F3NO; molar mass: 87.001 g/mol.
- Appearance: colorless gas.
- Melting point: -161 °C; boiling point: -87.5 °C.
- Critical temperature: 29.5 °C; critical pressure: about 64 atm.
- Dipole moment: 0.0390 Debye.

Molecular structure
- The molecule has near C3V symmetry with all N–F bonds equivalent.
- N–O bond has significant double-bond character (strong bond).

Spectroscopy and bonds
- 19F NMR shows a triplet near -363 ppm.
- Infrared bands include N–O stretch around 1687 cm−1 and N–F stretches near 743 and 887 cm−1.

Reactivity and safety
- It is a strong fluorinating agent and is toxic (kills rats at concentrations above ~200 ppm).
- Does not react with water, glass, or nickel.
- Can form hexafluoride salt adducts containing the [F2NO]+ ion with pentafluorides.
- Reacts slowly with mercury to form mercury fluorides and nitrogen oxides.
- Stable up to about 300 °C; decomposes slowly to fluorine and NOx species (NO2F, NOF, NO2, NO), with oxygen remaining attached to nitrogen.