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Recycling Environmentally Persistent Fluorocarbons with Metathesis and Shuttle Catalysis

Descrizione del progetto

Aiutare l’ambiente attraverso il riciclaggio del fluoro

Il fluoro è una delle sostanze chimiche più utili nell’età moderna e si trova all’interno di svariati prodotti che vanno dai refrigeranti agli oggetti casalinghi più comuni, passando per prodotti agrochimici e farmaceutici. Tuttavia, quasi tutti i composti a base di fluoro sulla Terra sono sintetici, monouso e quasi interamente non sostenibili. Il progetto FluoroCycle, finanziato dall’UE, si propone di superare questo ostacolo sviluppando approcci innovativi al riciclaggio dei vari composti a base di fluoro. Si avvalerà di un rivoluzionario metodo per estrarre il fluoro dai materiali e composti esistenti, consentendo di riutilizzarlo. Il fine ultimo è quello di fornire all’industria fluorochimica i mezzi per raggiungere la sostenibilità e aiutare l’Europa a raggiungere i suoi obiettivi ambientali.

Obiettivo

Fluorine containing molecules and materials improve our quality of life. For example, fluorinated gases are used as refrigerants in the automotive sector, while fluorine containing polymers such as Teflon are common in households. Fluorine is also important for drug discovery and agrochemicals. For all its advantages, the fluorochemicals industry is unsustainable. Nearly all fluorine containing molecules on our planet are synthetic and single use. At the end of their lifetime they are either destroyed or end up contaminating the environment. Environmental contamination has been extremely damaging. Fluorinated molecules have contributed to ozone depletion (chlorofluorocarbons - CFCs), global warming (hydrofluorocarbons - HFCs) and water contamination (polyfluorinated alkyl substances - PFAS).

If we are to continue to depend on fluorine containing molecules and materials, then we must find ways to reuse and recycle fluorine containing molecules at the end of their lifetime, we must stop our reliance on unsustainable natural sources of inorganic fluoride, and we must prevent unnecessary contamination of our planet with synthetic fluorine containing molecules.

My objective is to develop new catalytic approaches for the recycling of fluorine containing molecules. My long-term vision is to establish new methods in which fluorine containing molecules such as HFOs, HFCs and PFAS can be used as a source of fluorine atoms and fluorine containing groups. I will pioneer new catalytic reactions that involve the exchange of fluorine atoms between two organic molecules and shuttle equivalents of HF and F2 from one organic fragment to another. These methods represent an important step forward to closed-loop recycling in the fluorochemicals industry. The new methods will be showcased in the production of fluorinated electrolytes from HFOs, new materials from HFCs and new fragments for drug-discovery from the recycling of PFAS, including Teflon.

Campo scientifico (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifica i progetti con EuroSciVoc, una tassonomia multilingue dei campi scientifici, attraverso un processo semi-automatico basato su tecniche NLP.

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Meccanismo di finanziamento

ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant

Istituzione ospitante

IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Contribution nette de l'UE
€ 2 000 000,00
Indirizzo
SOUTH KENSINGTON CAMPUS EXHIBITION ROAD
SW7 2AZ LONDON
Regno Unito

Mostra sulla mappa

Tipo di attività
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Collegamenti
Costo totale
€ 2 000 000,00

Beneficiari (1)