Overview

While the applications for most fluorinated polymers, as well as other polymers, merely require stability in a sometimes hostile environment in terms of corrosive chemicals, high temperatures, strong mechanical stresses, or electric fields without failure, the applications of fluorinated ionomers are based on their ability to actively engage the surrounding environment: as catalysts they cause chemical reactions, as membranes they allow the flow of an electric current under small electric fields (the smaller the better). They can discriminate between anions and cations or allow the passage or water while acting as a barrier for gases. As an actuator (or artificial muscle), they create mechanical stresses or movement as a result of an electrical stimulus.

From a commercial standpoint, the most important examples of such interaction with a chemical system are found in the use of fluorinated ionomers in membrane form as separators in electrolytic cells.