Industry and Applications
The global market for fluorochemicals was about $16 billion per year as of 2006. Historically, the industry has grown a few percent per year and is predicted to do so in the future. Although fluorochemical demand contracted during the 2008–2009 global recession, the industry was predicted to reach 2.6 million tons per year by 2015.
The largest market is the United States. Western Europe is the second largest. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing region of production. China in particular has experienced significant growth as a fluorochemical market and is becoming a producer of them as well.
Fluorite mining (the main source of fluorine) was estimated in 2003 to be a $550 million industry, extracting 4.5 million tons per year. Most ores must be processed to concentrate the fluorite from other minerals by various methods of flotation separation. However, only about 1% of mined fluorite is ever converted to elemental fluorine.
Read more about this topic: Fluorine Compounds
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“What more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more … a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from labor the bread it has earned.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)