| ECOLOGY |
In a plenary lecture at the Bordeaux meeting, Horváth drew attention to some of the environmental issues associated with fluorous technologies. "Fluorous chemistry was invented to provide facile separation of products from reagents or catalysts," he noted. "While a fluorous system is designed to remain inside a laboratory or a production facility, low-level leaching of fluorous compounds into products or accidental releases could result in environmental issues. If such reagents or catalysts enter the environment, the oxidation of the hydrocarbon domains of the compounds could lead to the formation of fluorous carboxylic acids. Some of these acids have been shown to have negative health and environmental effects. "Most fluorous compounds are nontoxic, and some of them are used in biomedical applications, for example, for collapsed lung ventilation," he continued. "But there is still the major problem of persistence in the environment and bioaccumulation." He suggested that bioaccumulation could be limited by using shorter (C1 to C4) or longer (>C10) fluorous ponytails. Another possibility is to develop fluorous bioremediation techniques that employ "fluorous bugs" to consume perfluorocarbons as a carbon source and produce manageable fluorous waste. The bioaccumulation and bioremediation of fluorous compounds will, no doubt, be among the many topics to be discussed at the next international symposium on fluorous technologies, planned for Japan in 2007. |
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