How fluoropolymer makers are trying to hold on to their business
In February, the European Chemicals Agency published a proposal from five member countries to ban per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) containing at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom—an estimated 10,000 molecules in all, including popular fluoropolymers. Member states would vote on a ban in 2025; if it’s enacted, exceptions for fluorinated chemicals that cannot be replaced with alternative chemistries would expire in 7–12 years.In the US, the Environmental Protection Agency is working on mandatory drinking-water limits on PFAS molecules. State sanctions on PFAS are more far reaching, and many states have implemented restrictions on these so-called forever chemicals in applications including cookware, cosmetics, firefighting foam, textiles, and packaging.
Fluoropolymers have elite properties. They are resistant to chemicals and extreme temperatures—reasons they are used widely in the aerospace industry. And they often impart lubricity at their “nonstick” surfaces.Officials at fluoropolymer companies are quick to point out clean energy and high-tech sectors that couldn’t manage without the polymers. “Fluoropolymers are the key membrane that splits H2O into H and O,” Finelli says. “That’s how you make green hydrogen. And in a fuel cell, that same fluoropolymer recombines the hydrogen with oxygen to generate electricity.”Frenk Hulsebosch, Chemours’s global technical director for advanced performance materials, points to the perfluoroalkyloxy alkane (PFA) copolymer tubes and fittings that semiconductor fabricators use to carry aggressive and high-purity fluids like hydrofluoric acid. “You need the chemical inertness, and you need the purity for these semiconductor chips,” he says.
The task is trickier than merely swapping one fluorinated surfactant for another, Gaboury says. “It’s relatively easy to make the emulsion polymer with a nonfluorinated surfactant,” he says. “It’s difficult to make products with a nonfluorinated surfactant that have the same performance profile at the very end.”Gaboury explains that when chemists change to a nonfluorinated surfactant, they usually change other ingredients as well, such as the initiator and the transfer agent. “You have a little bit different profile of reactor materials, and ultimately there’s a little bit different residual profile in the product.” That can cause performance problems, he says.Chemours’s Wellman adds that the new surfactants are typically hydrocarbon-based. But the hydrogen-carbon bond isn’t as strong as the fluorine-carbon bond. “The presence of that hydrogen results in side reactions that you don’t want when you’re making a fluoropolymer,” she says. “That creates residuals that you also don’t want.”
Some firms are claiming success with the problematic polymers. India’s Gujarat Fluorochemicals announced in November 2022 that it has developed a nonfluorinated polymerization aid for its PTFE and PFA products. It will revamp production of these polymers later this year. Gujarat says that with this development, it will be able to make its entire product line without fluorosurfactants.
For Chemours’s Teflon PTFE and other product lines for which the firm hasn’t found an alternative surfactant, it has favored a strategy of abating the fluorosurfactant emissions and thermally destroying the rest. “A nonfluorinated surfactant is not the ultimate solution,” Wellman says.
Solvay has a similar policy for one of its product lines. The company has not found an alternative surfactant for its Tecnoflon PFR polymer, so it is making it in a clean room environment and sequestering aqueous emissions from the process.
But even with surfactant switching and abatement, fluoropolymer makers may be looking at a market in retreat over the long run.
