Aromatic compounds bearing one or more CF₃ groups on the ring are important intermediates and building blocks for the synthesis of numerous modern pharmaceuticals, highly efficient crop-protection agents, and specialty materials.
Trifluoromethylated aromatic compounds are currently manufactured by exhaustive chlorination of a methyl group on the aromatic ring, followed by the Swarts reaction of the resultant ArCCl₃ with HF. This process shows low functional-group tolerance and is ecologically unfriendly as it involves aggressive and hazardous materials (Cl₂, HF) and generates large quantities of chlorine waste (HCl).

Vladimir V. Grushin and colleagues, Institute of Chemical Researcxh of catalonia (ICIQ), Tarragona, Spain, have demonstrated, for the first time, that low-cost fluoroform-derived CuCF₃ reagents readily trifluoromethylate aryl boronic acids. The reaction smoothly occurs at room temperature and even below and 1 atm of air as the oxidant to give the corresponding benzotrifluorides in excellent yield (up to 99 %) and with high selectivity. The method exhibits unprecedentedly high functional-group tolerance for a variety of substrates bearing substituents in the ortho, meta, and para positions; even aryl boronic acids with formyl groups on the ring have been successfully trifluoromethylated in 74–82 % yield.
The use of additional ligands, costly oxidants (AgI), drying agents, and pure O₂ is not needed, which makes the reaction not only synthetically useful and inexpensive, but also advantageously simple and safe to run.

• Fluoroform-Derived CuCF₃ for Low-Cost, Simple, Efficient, and Safe Trifluoromethylation of Aryl Boronic Acids in Air,
  Petr Novák, Anton Lishchynskyi, Vladimir V. Grushin,
  Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2012, 51, 7767–7770.
  DOI: 10.1002/anie.201201613