Question

Why fluorination is explosive?

Answer 1

Fluorine:

• Fluorine is the most electronegative element.
• It is also the most reactive among all elements.
• It forms a very strong covalent or ionic bond with the substrates.

Fluorination:

• Fluorination is a well-known method to combine MONPs with fluorine-containing compounds or molecules.
• Due to the low bond dissociation energy of ${\mathrm{F}}_2$ molecule $(150.6\mathrm{kJ}{\mathrm{mol}}^{-1})$ the fluorination of hydrocarbons with pure fluorine gas occurs explosively.
• One of the other reasons is due to the strong, exothermic nature of one of the termination steps.