Fluorine plays a more prominent role than any other element in many areas of chemistry, life sciences, technology, industry, and modern life. Fluorine reacts with almost every element, and in principle, fluorine atoms can be incorporated into any organic molecule, making it the element with the most compounds. When H or OH is replaced with F in organic molecules, the bond energies and bond polarizations, and thus the properties, change significantly. Synthetic fluoroorganics are therefore becoming increasingly important in pharmaceutical active ingredients, crop protection agents, lubricants, and corrosion inhibitors, dyes, liquid crystals, surfactants, ionic liquids, blood substitutes, and so on. The most thermally and chemically stable polymers are fluoropolymers and their derivatives. Ionomers such as Nafion are of great importance in fuel cells and electrolytes. Low-molecular-weight CHF compounds are also produced on a scale of millions of tons as substitutes for CFRPs and are used as refrigerants, propellants, fire retardants, and solvents. Without _SF6 as an insulating gas, modern high-voltage and power engineering would be unthinkable; even the production of semiconductor chips is impossible without high-purity hydrofluoric acid and fluorine-containing plasma etching gases. Graphite fluoride and electrolytes with fluorinated anions are important components in electrochemical energy storage devices.

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