Fluorinated ketones, especially trifluoromethyl ketones, are of great interest because of their remarkable ability to function as enzyme inhibitors, 1 and because of their role as building blocks for trifluoromethyl heterocycles 2 and as monomers for novel polymeric materials. 3 Besides traditional methods involving the addition of Grignard or organo lithium reagents to trifluoroacetic acid, 4 other more recent methods such as the Wittig reaction with trifluoroacetamides, 5 ...