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College of Liberal Arts and Sciences University of Florida
Faculty Member UF Department of Chemistry

UF Department of Chemistry

Sisler Hall 428

352-3920-0591

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William R. Dolbier, Jr.

Professor Emeritus

Research Focus

Physical organic and synthetic fluoroorganic chemistry; kinetic and thermodynamic effects of fluorine as a substituent; mechanisms of thermal homolytic and pericyclic reactions; computational studies of fluorine substituent effects; kinetic behavior of fluorinated radicals; use of secondary deuterium isotope effects in mechanistic studies; gas kinetics, photochemistry; synthetic fluorine chemistry, including the development of novel fluorinated building blocks – nucleophilic trifluoromethylation, difluorocarbene chemistry, and the use of SF5Cl to make SF5 aliphatics and aromatics; fluorinated [2,2]paracyclophanes – their synthesis and their chemistry; the use of photoredox catalysis for generation of difluoromethyl radicals, and the application of this methodology.

Education and Training

1964–1965: Postdoctoral research, Yale University (lab of William v. E. Doering)

1961–1964: Ph.D. Organic Chemistry, Cornell University (lab of Melvin Goldstein) 

1957–1961: B.S. Chemistry, Stetson University 

Selected Awards

ACS Fellow (2011)

ACS Award for Creative Work in Fluorine Chemistry (2000) 

John Simon Guggenheim Fellow (1973–1974)

Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (1970–1972)

Teaching Awards, UF College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (1978, 1979, 1993)

Selected Activities

Regional Editor, Journal of Fluorine Chemistry (2006–2016)

Executive Committee, Fluorine Division, American Chemical Society (2002–2008)

Visiting Research Officer, National Research Council, Ottawa, Canada (1993)

Visiting Professor, University of Paris 7 Denis Diderot (1999)

Selected Publications

More than 315 refereed papers, books and chapters

Guide to Fluorine NMR for Organic Chemists, 2nd Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2016 (translated into Chinese, 2025)

Feng Tian, Scott B. Lewis, Michael D. Bartberger, William R. Dolbier, Jr., and Weston Thatcher Borden, “Experimental Study of the Stereomutation of 1,1-Difluoro-2-ethyl-3-methylcyclopropane Confirms the Predicted Preference for Disrotatory Ring Opening and Closure,” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1998, 120, 6187-6188. 280.

Xiao-Jun Tang and William R. Dolbier, Jr., “Efficient Cu-catalyzed ATRA Reactions of Fluoroalkyl Sulfonyl Chlorides with Electron-deficient Alkenes Induced by Visible Light,” Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 4246-4249.