Fluorine - The Halogen from Hell!

[Nagel]

I was going to post this, but the thread was closed. It was a thread about fluoride in drinking water and confused the extreme reactivity and toxicity of fluorine the element with fluoride the compound, which is beneficial in preventing tooth decay.

 

There's a good reason you never see elemental fluorine as it's unbelievably reactive, so reactive most chemists are scared to work with it.

 

Just take a look at this!

 

[Obelix]

I was going to post this, but the thread was closed. It was a thread about fluoride in drinking water and confused the extreme reactivity and toxicity of fluorine the element with fluoride the compound, which is beneficial in preventing tooth decay.

 

There's a good reason you never see elemental fluorine as it's unbelievably reactive, so reactive most chemists are scared to work with it.

 

Just take a look at this!

 

 

I'd only hope that we can have a sensible discussion before people kick off again..

 

The reaction chemistry shown there is with diflourine molecules which is the covalently bonded stuff and as you can see it is quite incredibly reactive. Chlorine does much the same sort of thing but reacts a little slower.

 

If you get a fluorine compound though they are actually incredibly stable - things like PTFE plastics are very temperature stable and quite safe. Ionic flourides are accessible to the body because they dissolve and an excess of them can cause problems - but so can an excess of other ionic halogens such as chloride in the case of excess table salt.

 

I have to say though I love the presenters hairstyle - is that real or put on for the video do you reckon?