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In general, the attractive properties of fluorinated hydrocarbons is also what makes them nasty. C-F bonds are incredibly stable, so they stick around forever.
by xkcd-sucks 8y ago
In general, the attractive properties of fluorinated hydrocarbons is also what makes them nasty. C-F bonds are incredibly stable, so they stick around forever. So, fluorination imparts a practical toxic liability to compounds that otherwise are too short-lived to be "toxic" in the "real world."
In addition, any process energetic enough to break C-F bonds will generate incredibly reactive intermediates which then attach to whatever biology is nearby.
- 08-15 8y agoThe same "nastiness" makes these compounds essentially non-toxic, too. Since nothing less reactive than oxygen radicals seems to attack C-F bonds, these compounds just sit there doing nothing. Which is what the report's summary says: they found the more common compounds everywhere, but they just sit there. (The summary(!) has awfully low information density, I am not going to look at the full report.)