An Oxford University spinout wants to replace a dangerous, centuries-old manufacturing step. Its chemistry is promising, but industrial scale is the decisive test.
A surprisingly large part of Europe’s battery and pharmaceutical supply chains depends on a chemical that manufacturers would rather not handle: hydrogen fluoride. Toxic and highly corrosive, it has long been the intermediate used to transform naturally occurring fluoride minerals into useful industrial compounds.
Oxford-based FluoRok believes that dependency can be broken. On November 5, the university spinout announced an oversubscribed $30 million Series A to move its hydrogen-fluoride-free fluorochemical technology from pilot qualification toward industrial manufacturing.
For founder and chief executive Dr Gabriele Pupo, the challenge is not simply producing one safer reagent. It is redesigning a foundational process used by multiple industries—and proving the alternative can compete on price, purity and reliability.
Why Fluorine Chemistry Is Difficult to Change
Fluorine-containing molecules are integral to pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals and battery electrolytes. FluoRok estimates that one in five medicines and one in three agrochemicals contain fluorine.
Conventional production begins with fluorspar, predominantly calcium fluoride (CaF₂). The mineral is chemically stubborn: its crystal structure is stable and it dissolves poorly, making its fluorine difficult to extract.
An open-access scientific analysis in Angewandte Chemie explains how industry traditionally reacts high-purity fluorspar with sulfuric acid at temperatures exceeding 300°C to generate hydrogen fluoride. That intermediate then feeds numerous downstream chemical processes.
The problem is industrial as much as chemical. Handling HF demands protective systems, specialized equipment and tightly controlled operations. These requirements raise barriers for new manufacturing plants, particularly where domestic fluorochemical capacity is limited.
The Scientific Breakthrough Is About Unlocking a Mineral
FluoRok says its patented process uses mechanical activation and basic chemistry, rather than the conventional acid-and-heat route. Mechanical energy helps drive reactions that would otherwise struggle against fluorspar’s stability.
The underlying research illustrates why this is plausible. A 2025 Journal of the American Chemical Society study by Thomas Schlatzer, Christopher Goult, Michael Hayward and Véronique Gouverneur reported converting fluorspar directly into lithium, sodium and potassium fluorides.
The researchers combined mineral powder with alkali-metal compounds and titanium dioxide under mechanical energy. Crucially, calcium was captured as calcium titanate, helping prevent the original mineral from reforming during extraction.
A separate 2024 open-access Nature paper, co-authored by Pupo and Gouverneur, demonstrated fluorochemical production from fluorspar in water below 50°C using chemical activation and calcium sequestration.
These are distinct published research approaches, not a disclosed recipe for FluoRok’s proprietary production line. Together, they show why removing HF from the manufacturing chain is chemically feasible.
A Battery Material With Strategic Importance
FluoRok’s initial commercial targets include inorganic fluorides for pharmaceutical and agricultural chemistry and lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF₆), a widely used conducting salt in lithium-ion battery electrolytes.
The European Commission classifies fluorspar as a critical raw material, making its sourcing a strategic concern. FluoRok says its technology can process lower-grade material and fluoride recovered from industrial waste, potentially expanding available feedstocks.
That flexibility could help European manufacturers diversify suppliers, although it does not eliminate the need for fluoride-containing raw materials.
There is also a crucial safety distinction. Avoiding HF during chemical production does not make LiPF₆ inherently harmless. Peer-reviewed battery-electrolyte research describes how exposure to moisture can cause the salt to decompose through reactions that generate HF. Manufacturing improvements therefore cannot substitute for safe electrolyte handling or battery design.
The Hardest Experiment Happens in a Factory
The financing was led by Orano Venture Fund/Supernova Invest, with Bidra Innovation Ventures participating and existing backers including BGF and Oxford Science Enterprises. According to CPI, a manufacturing scale-up partner, FluoRok had previously raised $14 million in investment and secured more than $13 million in public funding.
Its next challenge is repeatability. Industrial customers require consistent purity, predictable yields, manageable waste streams and reliable costs—not merely successful laboratory reactions.
CPI and Coventry University are working with FluoRok on a UK LiPF₆ demonstrator project, supported through the government’s DRIVE35 programme. Planned activities include battery qualification testing, while the new financing will support additional facilities and customer validation.
Claims of lower costs and environmental benefits remain company expectations until independently demonstrated at commercial scale, including energy use and byproduct management.
What FluoRok Says About Europe’s Deep-Tech Future
The financing illustrates a less visible European innovation opportunity: competing by changing the industrial chemistry behind established products, not just inventing new products.
For founders, that means long validation cycles, specialized partnerships and capital-intensive demonstration plants. For investors, the prize is a manufacturing platform serving several large industries rather than a single niche.
FluoRok’s decisive achievement will not be raising $30 million or proving another reaction. It will be showing that a safer manufacturing route can become the reliable, economical backbone of a European chemical supply chain.
