Making chemicals for medicines and batteries can involve handling highly toxic hydrogen fluoride. FluoRok, a British company spun out of the University of Oxford, wants to remove that substance from the manufacturing process. It has announced $30 million in financing to expand production of fluorochemicals, chemicals containing fluorine. The company says its method uses mechanical force instead of acid and high temperatures.
FluoRok says the process works with standard industrial equipment and can use lower-grade minerals or material recovered from industrial waste. That could widen the choice of raw materials and places where production is practical. Its technology has passed pilot testing, according to the company. The next step is building demonstration facilities to establish that manufacturing can be repeated reliably at a larger scale.
