[tensor]

Alright, inorganic chemist here needing some organic insight.

OK, I'm making sodium neo-pentoxide with sodium metal and the alcohol for a lanthanide oxo-alkoxide reaction. I need sodium triflate to precipitate out some excess chloride and provide some triflate as a counter anion. Whenever I make the alkoxide in the presence of sodium triflate or add the alkoxide to the triflate, the solution turns brown. I'm doing everything in THF. In fact, a brown precipitate will form if I let it react long enough. The sodium triflate in solution is colorless, and the alkoxide solution is colorless. Only together are they brown. What could be happening here? I read somewhere that alkly triflates catalyze the ring opening polymerization of THF, but I don't have any alkyl triflates.