The strong carbon-fluorine bond at the heart of Teflon can be found in clothing, lubricants, refrigerants, anesthetics, semiconductors and even blood substitutes. However, the C-F bond that gives this material its strength, making it useful in so many applications, also produces alarming greenhouse gas effects. Scientists from Brandeis University claim to have identified a catalyst that effectively breaks the C-F bond and converts it to a carbon-hydrogen bond, rendering it harmless to the environment.

Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are harmful to the ozone layer. Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and per fluorocarbons (PFCs) are generating concern because they are considered super-greenhouse gases, with great potential to warm the environment by trapping solar radiation and remaining virtually indestructible in the atmosphere.

Oleg Ozerov, who carried out the research along with Christos Douvris, explained: “The C-F bond is difficult to transform into other bonds under mild conditions because it is inert and unreactive; it’s a challenge to the chemists. But we’ve found a way to take a C-F bond that you can do very little with and break it and convert it cleanly into something else at room temperature.”

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Using a specially-coated form of clothing material Goretex, scientists at Monash University have developed an electrically-generated fuel cell which could make the next generation of hybrid cars more reliable and cheaper to build.

The team of Monash scientists have designed and tested an air-electrode, where a fine layer – just 0.4 of a micron thick, or about 100 times thinner than a human hair – of highly conductive plastic is depositied on the breathable fabric. The conductive plastic acts as both the fuel cell electrode and catalyst.

Dr Bjorn Winther-Jensen, Monash University, explained: “The same way as waste vapour is drawn out of this material to make hikers more comfortable and less prone to hypothermia, so it is able the ‘breathe’ oxygen into our fuel cell and into contact with the conductive plastic.”

Professor Doug MacFarlane, Monash University, continued: “The benefits for the motoring industry and for motorists are that the new design removes the need for platinum, which acts as the catalyst and is currently central to the manufacturing process.

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