New research has demonstrated a simple, environmentally friendly way to break down Teflon, one of the world’s most durable plastics, into useful chemical building blocks.
Scientists from Newcastle University and the University of Birmingham have developed a clean, energy-efficient method to recycle Teflon (PTFE), best known for its use in non-stick coatings and other applications that require high chemical and thermal stability.
The researchers discovered that waste Teflon can be broken down and repurposed using only sodium metal and mechanical energy – movement by shaking – at room temperature and without toxic solvents.
Publishing their findings on 22 October in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), the team revealed a low-energy, waste-free alternative to conventional fluorine recycling.
Dr Roly Armstrong, Lecturer in Chemistry at Newcastle University and corresponding author, said: “The process we have discovered breaks the strong carbon–fluorine bonds in Teflon®, converting it into sodium fluoride, which is used in fluoride toothpastes and added to drinking water.
“Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of Teflon are produced globally each year – it’s used in everything from lubricants to cookware coatings, and currently there are very few ways to dispose of it. As those products reach the end of their life, they usually end up in landfill – but this process allows us to extract the fluorine and upcycle it into useful new materials.”
Associate Professor Dr Erli Lu, from the University of Birmingham, added: “Fluorine is a vital element in modern life – it’s found in around one-third of all new medicines and in many advanced materials. Yet fluorine is traditionally obtained through energy-intensive and heavily polluting mining and chemical processes. Our method shows that we can recover it from everyday waste and reuse it directly – turning a disposal problem into a resource opportunity.”
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), best known by the brand name Teflon®, is valued for its resistance to heat and chemicals, making it ideal for cookware, electronics, and laboratory equipment. However, those same properties make it almost impossible to recycle.
When burned or incinerated, PTFE releases persistent pollutants known as ‘forever chemicals’ (PFAS), which remain in the environment for decades. Traditional disposal methods therefore pose major environmental and health concerns.
The team tackled this challenge using mechanochemistry – a green approach that drives chemical reactions through mechanical energy rather than heat.
Inside a sealed steel container known as a ball mill, sodium metal fragments are ground with Teflon®, causing them to react at room temperature. The process breaks the strong carbon–fluorine bonds, converting the material into harmless carbon and sodium fluoride – a stable inorganic salt widely used in toothpaste.
The researchers then showed that the sodium fluoride recovered can also be used directly, without purification, to create other valuable fluorine-containing molecules. These include compounds used in pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, and fine chemicals.
Associate Professor Dr Dominik Kubicki, who leads the University of Birmingham’s solid-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) team, said: “We used advanced solid-state NMR spectroscopy – one of our specialities at Birmingham – to look inside the reaction mixture at the atomic level. This allowed us to prove that the process produces clean sodium fluoride without any by-products. It’s a perfect example of how state-of-the-art materials characterisation can accelerate progress towards sustainability.”
The discovery provides a blueprint for a circular economy for fluorine, where valuable elements are recovered from industrial waste rather than discarded. This could reduce the environmental footprint of fluorine-based chemicals, which are essential in medicine, electronics, and renewable-energy technologies.
“Our approach is simple, fast, and uses inexpensive materials,” said Lu. “We hope it will inspire further work on reusing other kinds of fluorinated waste and help make the production of vital fluorine-containing compounds more sustainable.”
The work also highlights the growing importance of mechanochemistry – an emerging branch of green chemistry that replaces high-temperature or solvent-intensive reactions with simple mechanical motion – as a tool for sustainable innovation.
“This research shows how interdisciplinary science, combining materials chemistry with advanced spectroscopy, can turn one of the most persistent plastics into something useful again. It’s a small but important step towards sustainable fluorine chemistry,” said Kubick.