Fluorine is a remarkable element. In its elemental state, it is highly reactive and toxic. However, when tightly bonded to other molecules and elements, it becomes almost totally non-reactive, taking on remarkable properties that have made the manufacture of almost totally inert lubricants possible. These lubricants not only include high temperature grease and oil but also several types of wax.

Fluorine and hydrogen fluoride have a remarkable affinity for calcium and silicon. This property allows these simple fluoro-acids to do very useful things, such as etch glass (which is made from silicon-based silica) in an industrial setting. It also makes it very dangerous. That very same acid can burn right through your arm and straight to your bones.

Of course, most people don't handle highly reactive fluorochemicals at any point in their lives. This is reserved for a very small number of researchers and technicians who are well aware of the danger such compounds of fluorine pose to human health.

The fluorine compounds that most people come into contact with are very solidly bonded to other chemicals before most people ever come near. As such, they are mostly inert by definition - something that petroleum-based hydrocarbons certainly cannot claim. Among the most useful attributes of fluorochemical based oils are their ability to remain non-reactive in even the most critical and potentially reactive situation involving gases such as pure, high-pressure oxygen situations or other cryogenic gases that are commonly used for a wide array of functions.

Anyone familiar with the highly reactive nature of gases under high pressure or stored as super-cold liquids knows that every single surface that such gases come into contact, whether on purpose or accidentally in the case of mechanical failure of the delivery device components, must not be composed of reactive substances.

The gas most commonly used and stored in this way is oxygen. Though perhaps most often found in medical applications, SCUBA divers, mountaineers and high level athletes all use portable liquid oxygen tanks to deliver pure gaseous oxygen. Safety with such devices goes well beyond a smoking ban.

Since mechanical devices are responsible for mixing and delivering oxygen or other reactive gasses under high pressure, an oxygen compatible delivery system requires inert oils such as the completely fluorinated or polychlorotrifluoroethylenes (PCTFE) based oils, lubricants and waxes that keep moving parts from friction while not succumbing to the fierce oxidization and other violent reactions that characterize many such gases.

Life support systems that carry oxygen (and often nitrogen, too) in medical applications must meet the highest standards of oxygen safety. Only totally inert substances are allowed, even inside sealed bearings and the other hardware of an oxygen delivery system. Oxygen compatibility of halocarbon synthetic, inert oils and waxes has been investigated and approved for use by notoriously picky EU investigation bodies. These arbiters of oxygen safety concerned themselves with all types and sizes of oxygen delivery systems.

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