Scaled-up production of n-C3F7I photolytic laser ‘‘fuel’’

Abstract

A tenfold mass production scale-up that provides an economical synthesis method for producing normal-heptafluoropropyl iodide (n-C3F7I) laser ‘‘fuel’’ sustaining stable and reliable cw atomic iodine lasing at 1.315 μ via UV photolysis is reported. Such results strongly indicate that high purity n-C3F7I is being synthesized. Over 1 kg per day production of this n-C3F7I is demonstrated. The synthesis procedure involves three steps: formation of the n-C3F7COONa salt, refluxing at 45 °C, and a packed column distillation. During the synthesis, particular attention is given to minimizing those impurities producing detrimental effects on atomic iodine lasers. Yields of 65%–75% for n-C3F7I laser ‘‘fuel’’ are achieved whenever liquid nitrogen is used to collect the synthesized product.

The dark reactions F2 + CF3I, C2F5I, andn-C3F7I

“…In addition, CF20 overlaps many other features such as the C2F6 line near 1250 cm-I. Figure 3 shows the analogous spectra for n-C3F71, which was produced on site [35]. An FTIR spectrum of the n-C3F7I is shown in Figure 3(a) and is consistent with the Sadtler [28] and Aldrich [36] spectra.…”