Challenging the oxidation-state limitations of the periodic table via high-pressure fluorine chemistry
The HiPeR-F project aims to establish a new frontier research direction – high-pressure fluorine chemistry, by method development and a merger of two highly specialised and experimentally demanding fields, namely high-pressure experiments in diamond anvil cell and inorganic fluorine chemistry. Fluorine under high pressure represents a breakthrough testing environment for challenging the oxidation-state limitations of the elements in the periodic table. Tantalizing theoretical indications have been provided recently for the existence of compounds with elements displaying unusual and exotic formal oxidation states, and even the possibility of the inner electronic shell involvement in chemical bonding. However, extreme conditions of very high pressure (in GPa range) and extreme chemical reactivity (fluorine) are required and this is currently limited to in silico investigations. Experiment lags substantially behind the theory. The experimental verification of exciting computational predictions is of paramount importance and will be pursued in HiPeR-F. Targeted compounds with elements in exotic oxidation states are at the edge of existence and are eminently difficult to synthesise, but are also of significant interest to the scientific community at large. Novel compounds obtained in high-pressure experiments could exhibit unusual electronic structures and thus exotic physical properties. High-pressure fluorochemistry thus represents a genuine new direction in modern chemistry with exciting possibilities and would enable a frontier research that would significantly advance our understanding of many facets of chemistry.