Phosphonium Cations from Mucohaloacids

Reaction of phosphines with reduced mucobromic and mucochloric acids as a route to novel phosphonium salts

Mucohaloacids — mucobromic acid and mucochloric acid — are versatile and underexplored halogenated building blocks derived from furfural. Their reduced forms bear a highly electrophilic allylic framework that can engage in nucleophilic substitution and addition reactions with a range of nucleophiles.

This project investigates the reactivity of tertiary phosphines toward reduced mucobromic and mucochloric acids, aiming to produce novel phosphonium cation salts. The reaction is expected to proceed via nucleophilic attack of the phosphine on the allylic electrophile, and the resulting phosphonium salts will be fully characterized by multinuclear NMR spectroscopy (¹H, ¹³C, ³¹P), MALDI-ToF-MS, and, when possible, X-ray crystallography.

Beyond their structural interest, phosphonium salts derived from halogenated scaffolds may present biological activity, and their evaluation as potential antimicrobial agents is envisioned as a future direction of this research. This project is intended as a Scientific Initiation project at UFSJ.