Rewriting the Organofluorine Playbook
(Phys.org) -- Sometimes it is easy to overgeneralize, to conclude that simply because a group of things are pretty much all the same, they're identical in all respects, even interchangeable. But such assumptions can cause a lot of problems, not just in everyday life but also in science. One example is the findings of a research team whose experiments at two U.S. Department of Energy Office (DOE) of Science facilities, including the Advanced Photon Source (APS) have shaken up the field of organofluorine chemistry by challenging some long-held theoretical assumptions, and because of their implications for the practical application of materials based on certain important molecules. Their published study was the cover article May 2012 issue of the journal Chemical Science.