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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Fluorine

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Fluorine

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The following discussion is an archived discussion of the TFAR nomination of the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page unless you are renominating the article at TFAR. For renominations, please add {{collapse top|Previous nomination}} to the top of the discussion and {{collapse bottom}} at the bottom, then complete a new {{TFAR nom}} underneath.

The result was: scheduled for Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 23, 2014 by BencherliteTalk 23:40, 8 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Liquid fluorine at cryogenic temperatures

Fluorine is the extremely reactive chemical element with atomic number 9. A highly toxic pale yellow gas at standard conditions, it was first described in 1529 as its principal source fluorite, a mineral added as a flux for smelting, and named after the Latin verb fluo meaning "flow". As the lightest halogen and most electronegative element, it is difficult and dangerous to separate from its compounds, and several early experimenters died or sustained injuries from their attempts. The process employed for its modern production, low-temperature electrolysis, remains the same as that used by Henri Moissan in 1886 to achieve its first isolation. The high costs of refining fluorine gas lead most commercial uses, such as aluminium refining, insulation and refrigeration, into handling its compounds, while uranium enrichment is the free element's largest application. Although fluorine is a part of some pharmaceuticals and appears as the fluoride ion in toothpaste, it has no known metabolic role in mammals, and a few plants possess fluorine-containing poisons to deter herbivores. Fluorocarbon gases are usually potent greenhouse gases and organofluorine compounds persist in the environment. (Full article...)