Perfluoroperhydrophenanthrene 1 may be used as a ‘bulking agent’ to minimise the problem of solvent recovery in halogen exchange (‘Halex’) reactions for the preparation of octafluorocyclopentene 8, and chlorofluoro-pyridine, -pyrimidine and -benzene derivatives. New ‘one-pot’ procedures for the syntheses of hexafluorobut-2-yne 3, octafluorobut-2-ene 11 and hexafluorocyclobutene 7 are described.