SBIR Phase I: Fluorocarbon Production with Germanium tetrafluoride

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This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project shall investigate the use of germanium tetrafluoride (GeF4), and antimony Sb(V) as a catalyst for GeF4 fluorination to develop a new and more efficient process for the production of hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants. There have been unsuccessful attempts to use GeF4 for fluorination of chlorocarbons. However, it is believed that those experiments failed because they used uncatalyzed GeF4. Several manufactures have already begun investing in new HFC manufacturing capability. Use of Chlorofluorocarobons (CFC's) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFC's) as refrigerants is a $28 billion dollar industry. Environmental concerns with HCFC and CFC has led to requirements that those ozone depleting products be completely eliminated by 2030 and HFC's gradually phased in to replace them. The results obtained from this project will help to identify the most promising commercial opportunities to exploit from this innovation and determine how useful the process would be for application in high volume production.