Nature inspires breakthrough achievement: Hazard-free production of fluorochemicals

Source: The post is based on the article “Nature inspires breakthrough achievement: Hazard-free production of fluorochemicals”  published in Phys.org on 20th July 2023

What is the News?

Researchers at the University of Oxford have achieved a groundbreaking breakthrough by developing a new technique to produce fluorochemicals without using hazardous hydrogen fluoride (HF) gas

What are Fluorochemicals?

Fluorine is a highly reactive element that comes from a calcium salt called calcium fluoride, or fluorspar. 

Fluorine is used to make fluorochemicals, which in turn are used to produce plastics, agrochemicals, lithium-ion batteries and drugs. 

What is the process of making Fluorochemicals and what are its drawbacks?

Process: Fluorspar is mined and then treated with sulphuric acid at a high temperature to release hydrogen fluoride (HF).HF is then made to react with other compounds to create fluorochemicals.

Drawback: A major downside of this process is that HF is an extremely poisonous and corrosive liquid that irritates the eyes and respiratory tract even at low concentrations It also requires special transportation and storage requirements.

– Moreover, despite stringent safety regulations, HF spills have occurred numerous times in the last decades, sometimes with fatal accidents and detrimental environmental effects.

What have the researchers developed to overcome this drawback in making Fluorochemicals?

Researchers took inspiration from how the human body makes bones and teeth through calcium phosphate biomineralisation. 

Based on this, they developed an innovative which involved grinding fluorspar with potassium phosphate in a ball-mill While fluorine is very reactive, calcium atoms prefer phosphorus even more, so the milling created calcium phosphate and another compound with fluorine atoms. They called this process Fluoromix.

When this Fluoromix was reacted with organic compounds, it could create around 50 fluorochemicals with up to 98% yield.

Significance: This new method has the potential to enhance safety and environmental impact, streamline the supply chain and reduce energy demands in the rapidly expanding global fluorochemical industry.