Over the past decades, fluorinated organic molecules have contributed to enhancing our quality of life and life expectancy. But with a growing and ageing population, we are now facing severe problems including climate change, energy, water, food, medicine and material supply, with resources that are finite and depleting too rapidly.

All fluorine atoms incorporated in fluorochemicals are ultimately derived from naturally occurring fluorspar. Industrially, the process relies on energy-intensive treatment of fluorspar with sulfuric acid at elevated temperatures to generate hydrogen fluoride (HF) which is stored as liquified gas, or used as an aqueous solution.