107 Stories About Chemistry
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Many types of modern refrigerators use freon as their cooling agent. Chemists have a more complex name for this substance: difluorodichloromethane. Fluorine is an indispensable constituent of this compound. Itself "destructive," fluorine can form compounds which practically nothing can destroy. They will not burn nor rot and are insoluble in alkalis and acids; free fluorine does not attack them, and they are almost wholly indifferent to arctic cold and to sudden sharp temperature changes. Some of them are liquids, others solids. Their common name is fluorocarbons, compounds which nature herself was unable to invent. They were produced by man. The union of carbon and fluorine was found very useful. Fluorocarbons are employed as cooling fluids in motors, for impregnating special fabrics, as very long-lived lubricants, insulators and structural materials for various kinds of equipment in the chemical industry. When the scientists were searching for ways of harnessing nuclear energy, it became necessary to separate the uranium isotopes uranium235 and uranium-238. And as has already been said above, investigators succeeded in accomplishing this very complicated task with the aid of a very interesting compound called uranium hexafluoride. It was fluorine which helped chemists to prove that the inert gases were not at all chemical sloths as had been thought for decades. The first compound of the inert gas xenon brought to life was its compound with fluorine. Such is fluorine's work record..
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