2-bromo-2,2-difluoroethanol is helpful as an intermediate of medicines or agrichemicals or a synthetic intermediate or raw material for functional materials such as fluorine-containing polymers. 2-bromo-2,2-difluoroethanol could be used to synthesise Fluorine-containing sulfonic acid salts as a raw material. Fluorine-containing sulfonic acid salts are useful as an intermediate for producing a solid electrolyte used for a fuel cell or the like or an intermediate for producing a photoacid generator useful as a chemically amplified resist material suitable for micromachining techniques (e.g. photolithography in particular) applied in industrial processes of a semiconductor device or the like.
