Researcher Jorge Escorihuela, Associate Professor in the Department of Organic Chemistry at the Universitat de València and a member of the Photochemistry Reactivity Group at the Institute of Molecular Science, ICMol, is part of the international Fluorine Circularity Team, which has been recognised by the Royal Society of Chemistry with one of the 2026 Organic Chemistry Horizon Prizes.

The award recognises recent and significant advances in the field of organic chemistry. In this case, the Royal Society of Chemistry has honoured the team for the development of mechanochemical and room-temperature strategies to defluorinate and upcycle fluoropolymers and PFAS, materials known for their high environmental persistence.

These compounds, which include materials such as PTFE and PVDF, contain particularly strong carbon-fluorine bonds, making them difficult to degrade using conventional methods. In contrast to strategies based on high-temperature incineration, the work of the Fluorine Circularity Team proposes a milder and safer route to transform fluorinated waste into useful sources of fluorine.

The approach developed makes it possible to convert waste fluoropolymers into resources such as sodium fluoride or potassium fluoride, which can be reused in the synthesis of new fluorinated compounds of interest to sectors such as the pharmaceutical industry, electronics and advanced materials. In this way, the research introduces the concept of fluorine circularity: rather than treating these atoms as waste, it proposes recovering them and reincorporating them into new chemical processes.

According to the Royal Society of Chemistry, this approach could help reduce dependence on fluorite mining and hydrofluoric acid-based fluorination processes, while also opening up new avenues to address the global problem of PFAS and fluoropolymer waste.

Jorge Escorihuela contributed to the work through computational studies. The team is led by Norio Shibata, from the Nagoya Institute of Technology, and includes researchers from the Japanese institution and the Universitat de València.

The recognition by the Royal Society of Chemistry highlights the international relevance of a line of research aimed at converting environmentally problematic materials into valuable chemical resources, in line with the principles of sustainable chemistry and the circular economy.