Véronique Gouverneur, a Belgian professor at the University of Oxford, has discovered a way to tackle PFAS, synthetic chemical compounds that persist in the environment for extremely long periods.
The work of Véronique Gouverneur, a Belgian chemist born to a French-speaking father and a Dutch-speaking mother and originally from Pécrot in Walloon Brabant, has attracted the attention of the international scientific community thanks to her recent discoveries on ways to recycle PFAS. These synthetic chemical compounds, created by humans, are often referred to as “forever chemicals” because of their remarkable persistence in the environment.
In recognition of her efforts to develop more environmentally friendly chemistry, the Belgian scientist has recently been awarded the highly prestigious Major Scientific Prize of the Simone and Cino Del Duca Foundation. Since joining the renowned University of Oxford in 1998, she has been committed to a research program aimed at inventing new chemical reactions to prepare various categories of fluorinated molecules.
Until now, the only way to extract fluorine from its ore has been to treat it at high temperatures with sulfuric acid. This process produces hydrogen fluoride (HF), a highly dangerous and potentially deadly acid. Together with her team, she has developed a more environmentally friendly method that involves mixing the ore in a ball mill with a base such as potassium phosphate in order to produce fluorinated derivatives used in a wide range of industries.
More recently, she and her team have discovered a way to tackle PFAS, these persistent environmental pollutants composed of long chains of carbon and fluorine, by developing a process capable of breaking the carbon-fluorine bond. This process produces a black powder from which fluorine can be extracted and subsequently recycled for use in the chemical industry.
