Sequential production of electrophilic and nucleophilic fluorinating agents from [18F]fluorine gas

A rapid yet efficient method for the sequential production of both 18F labelled electrophilic and a 18F labelled nucleophilic fluorinating agent is described. The method uses [18F]F2 gas produced from a single irradiation of a neon target. First acetyl hypofluorite is produced by passing all of the [18F]F2 through KOCOCH32CH3COOH complex. Then the 18F retained in the KOCOCH32CH3COOH complex is recovered as trimethylfluorosilane by treating the complex with sulphuric acid and hexamethyldisilazane. The trimethylfluorosilane is then hydrolysed in tetra-alkylammonium hydroxide to produce tetra-alkylammonium fluoride. The method is quantitative and takes 45 min.