Thermodynamic Aspects of the Use of Elementary Fluorine as the Fluorinating Agent

Abstract

The fluorination of elementary substances and inorganic and organic compounds with elementary fluorine is accompanied by high heat release (of about hundreds of kilojoules per mol of fluorine), which determines the high probability of their implementation in the unsteady-state temperature mode (combustion or thermal explosion mode) when the temperature of the process products is close to adiabatic, and a significant part of the released heat is removed from the obtained substances outside the reaction zone. If target fluorides are present in the thermodynamically equilibrium mixture of substances in an element system that contains fluorine at a temperature close to the adiabatic temperature, fluorination in the combustion mode is successfully used in industry. Otherwise, it is reasonable to perform fluorination in the steady-state (close to isothermal) temperature mode by removing the heat of the reaction from the reacting mixture directly in the reaction zone. This publication considers the efficiency of application of the steady- and unsteady-state temperature modes in the fluorination of various substances with elementary fluorine.