Towards efficient room-temperature fluorine recovery from fluoropolymers

PTFE is mainly disposed of via incineration, landfilling, and defluorination. However, incineration requires high energy and involves the release of hydrogen fluoride, which is highly corrosive. Meanwhile, landfilling leads to an environmental burden of undegraded PTFE. By contrast, defluorination, in which PTFE is converted into its constituent fluorine compounds, is eco-friendly as it enables polymer recycling. Unfortunately, traditional PTFE defluorination either requires high-temperature reactions (>500 °C) or complex reagents for the more manageable low-temperature reactions (<100 °C). Moreover, in either case, the efficiency of fluorine recovery has not been explored.