Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1954-07-14
Grect New Uses Found
For Deadly FIuorine
Tdmino' Of Corrosive Cos
IS Milestone in Chemistry
By Thomas R. Henry

The yellow. deadly poisonous. highly
corrosive gas fiuorine, which makes
water burst into flame and eats
through glass and asbestos. promises
to provide trillion new kinds Of bricks
for the civilization Of tomorrow.
Probably chemistry's greatest adj
vances In the past two generations
have been In the field Of hydrocarbons
simple combinations Of hydrogen and
carbon abundant everywhere in nature
and most easily extracted from coal
and petroleum. Out Of them have been
synthesized perfumes. dyes, plastics
and q thousand other materials.
But the future may well belong to
the equally versatile hydrocarbons.
according to O report to the Office Of
Naval Research by DIR. Joseph H.
Simons Of the University Of Florida,
one Of the pioneer workers In this
field. who Is carrying out investigations
under Navy auspices. During the war.
when the field was highly restricted,
the fluoroCarbon products were referred
to 40 "Joe's stuff. ]" In reference to their
discOverer.
"Tamed" During War.
It was during these war years that
the wild gas fluorine was tanned" so
that It could be incorporated safely
and with great stability into all sorts
Of combinations. When the fission Of
uranium 235 was first discovered. for
example, q major problem was to sep
arate this rare isotope from the far
more abundant uranium 2S8 and 1t
then seemed that the only way this
could be accomplished was by the
so-called gas-diffusion technique. This
required getting uranium in the form
Of gas. Physicists and chemists de.
SPARED. The only gas containing ura-
mum known was uranium fuoride and
this would eat its way through any
container except possibly one made Of
solid gold.
The tanning Of fiuorine thus became
one Of the basic steps In the atomic
bomb project.
Now, reports DR.. Sirnons, the field is
pretty well conquered and chemists
face future of hitherto understandable
richness. Essentially every one of the
hydrocarbons can be duplicated in the
form Of fluorocarbon fluorine
atoms replacing the hydrogen atoms
They will enter into about the same
combinations. There are at least mil
lion hydrocarbons. The number Of
hydrocarbons will be at least as great.
hydrocarbons and hydrocarbons can
be combined In all sorts Of ways so
that the estimate Of q potential trillion
new materials is considered mini
mum.
Must Be Made In Lab.
AS yet, DR.. Simons points out, barely
start has been made in this field.
Even so, single fluorocarbon plastic
has been put to more than 1000 uses.
A possible drawback is that all the
hydrocarbons must be made In the
laboratory, whereas the hydrocarbons
occur in nature. Fortunately, says DR..
Simons, there Is about as great an
abundance Of fluorine as Of carbon in
the world. and the methods Of &C
complishing the syntheses are fairly
cheap and simple.
"The first important property Of the
hydrocarbons, he says, "is their high
stability. Most Of them can resist de-
composition at dull-red heat. This will
result in permanence of materials made
Of hydrocarbons which cannot be had
Of materials made with organic chem
ical substances. OF perhaps greater
significance is the fact the fluorocar-
bons resist chemical attack by even
the most powerful reagents. up to APP
proximately the same temperatures.
AS these include the oxygen Of the air
it means that the materials are so re-
sistant to combustion that they can be
considered fireproof.
"Oils, plastics, rubbers and paints
composed Of hydrocarbons can be ex-
pected to replace organizes in the fll-
ture. To date, hydrocarbons have NOT
found extensive use. This is primarily
because materials were not available
Another reason is because the prop
critics are SO different from previously
known materials that we have had e
begin learning about them from the
very beginning and often have been LED
astray by our previously conceived
notions"