Essential Fluorochemistries: Making the Energy Transition a Reality

Chuck Chaitovitz
Vice President, Environmental Affairs and Sustainability, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Published

May 20, 2024

The United States has set ambitious targets to reduce emissions and ensure widespread adoption of clean energy technologies. Fluorochemistries, including many PFAS chemistries, play a critical role in rapidly advancing, deploying, and scaling the technologies required to decarbonize electricity, generate clean fuels, reduce emissions, and improve energy efficiency.

From solar panels and wind turbines to rechargeable fuel cell batteries and hydrogen production, fluorochemistries can help make our climate targets a reality. And importantly, for many of these clean technologies, there are no alternatives to fluorochemistries that offer the same required performance.

Essential Components Driving the Energy Transition

Due to their unique combination of properties, fluorochemistries facilitate sustainable and renewable energy installations to improve durability, lower maintenance costs, and increase efficiency. With improved functionality and design flexibility, fluorochemistries are used in components and locations throughout the country – giving us the opportunity to pursue a greener future.

Built to Last: The lifetime of solar panels can be extended by up to 25 years due to the electrical insulation provided by fluorochemistries. Their unique qualities also provide a protective armor from harsh environmental conditions in applications such as coatings for solar thermal installations and paints on the towers and blades of wind power generators.
Charging the Future: Central to the electrification of cars and consumer technology, lithium-ion batteries and polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells rely on fluorochemistries to improve safety and withstand high voltages. Fluorochemistries’ high chemical, temperature, and oxidation resistance offer unmatched performance for the United States to drive long-term sustainability needed to power the energy transition.
Decarbonizing Sustainable Solutions: Fluorochemistries offer durability and resilience for the process of water electrolysis, allowing hydrogen production to be powered by renewable energy, like wind and solar. By reducing carbon dioxide emissions in hydrogen production, fluorochemistries are central to promoting U.S. leadership in the clean energy transition.

Efforts to ban or severely restrict the availability of fluorochemistries are occurring around the country and around the world, risking access to safe, effective compounds that are helping create a clean energy future, reduce the impacts of climate change, and maintain America’s technology leadership on the world stage.

The Chamber is leading Essential Chemistry for America, an initiative dedicated to safeguarding access to fluorochemistries by increasing awareness of their essential role across every major sector of the U.S. economy.