Fluorochemicals are critical to the energy transition, our health, and our quality of life but these materials are made using highly toxic, corrosive, highly carbon-intensive, and expensive hydrogen fluoride gas.
FluoRok completely reinvents this manufacturing process to avoid this gas eliminating the safety issues, expense, and high emissions associated. They aim to use this to produce Lithium battery electrolyte salts for the European market, a critical raw material for Li-ion battery manufacturing and to make agricultural and pharmaceutical active ingredients.
Dr Andrew Schwarz is the Vice President of Business Development with broad responsibilities in FluoRock. He reflects that “I come from a technical background, only recently moving to more commercially focused in the last 2–3 years. I aim to develop the skill to successfully scale up FluoRok’s business to become a UK based champion in the chemicals sector.”
He recognises that the networking in the Shott Scale Up Accelerator is critical to the success of FluoRok and his professional development. He plans to use it to develop an effective network to leverage external knowledge and expertise by accessing investors and others in the startup ecosystem to leverage development funds and share best practice across industries. He will also use the Shott Scale Up Accelerator training workshops to develop his negotiation skills and understanding how to scale businesses.
Fluorock is going through a rapid expansion phase towards building their first manufacturing plants. Over the next 12 months they aim to commission a kilo-scale lab for production of product that will develop best practice operational and safety plans. By the year end they plan to demonstrate at manufacturing scale.
FluoRok’s technology produces Lithium Hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6), a critical Li-ion battery material in a fully scalable, safe method that can be produced in the EU, rather than relying on China. It will create a secure, stable, circular supply chain for EU-based electrolyte manufacturers using low-purity (70-85%) recycled fluorspar and a completely safe-to-handle reagent.
