In their recent CrystEngComm article Pierangelo Metrangolo, Giuseppe Resnati and co-workers discuss how fluorine can display a region of positive electrostatic potential when bound to residues which work as particularly strong electron withdrawing groups. Fluorine can thus function as a halogen bond donor and form complexes with lone-pair-containing neutral atoms and anions. Read more about the impact of this newly revealed aspect of fluorine behaviour in the communication below.
The fluorine atom as a halogen bond donor, viz. a positive site
Pierangelo Metrangolo, Jane S. Murray, Tullio Pilati, Peter Politzer, Giuseppe Resnati and Giancarlo Terraneo
CrystEngComm, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05554B
