Description
Perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA) is a dense, moderately high-boiling liquid. It is the main component of Fluosol-43, an artificial blood substitute that has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for use in cardiac angioplasty. PFTBA is also used as an ingredient in some refrigerants.
But PFTBA has a downside: It is persistent in the atmosphere and a powerful greenhouse gas. In 2013, S. A. Mabury at the University of Toronto used IR spectroscopy data to calculate that PFTBA is the strongest global-warming potential of any compound detected in the atmosphere—7100 times greater than that of CO2.
Chemical Properties
clear colourless liquid
Uses
Perfluorotributylamine is used in electronic applications viz. liquid burn-in, testing and vapor phase soldering processes. It acts as an indicator fluid to check the leakage and heat transfer fluid for thermal shock testing. It is an active component in fluosol, which is a substitute for artificial blood and fluorinert coolant liquids. Further, it is used as a solvent for computer disc drive lubrication. In addition to this, it is used as a calibration chemical in gas chromatography.
Perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA) is commonly used for the calibration of the mass axes of mass spectrometers, basically in those systems, which use electron ionization (EI). PFTBA may be used as a calibration standard for the gas chromatography-mass spectrometric determination of tramadol in human plasma samples and phthalate esters in water samples.
Application
Perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA) is commonly used in systems that use electron ionisation (EI) for the calibration of mass spectrometer mass spectrometer mass spectrometer axes, and PFTBA can be used as a calibration standard for the determination of tramadol in human plasma samples by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and for the determination of phthalate esters in water samples.
Definition
ChEBI: An organofluorine compound that is tributylamine in which all the hydrogens have been replaced by fluorine atoms.
Preparation
Perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA) is prepared by electrofluorination of tributylamine using hydrogen fluoride as solvent and source of fluorine:
N(C4H9)3 + 27 HF → N(C4F9)3+ 27 H2
Safety
Perfluorotributylamine is belongs to fluorofluids, fluorofluids are generally of very low toxicity, so much that they have been evaluated as synthetic blood.
Precautions
Store in a cool place. Incompatible with powdered metals and alkali metals.
