Vinylidene fluoride (VDF) is one
of the major fluorinated monomers.
Currently, it is produced via the pyrolysis of 1-chloro-1,1-difluoroethane
at above 650 °C without any catalyst. Herein, we propose that
metal fluorides are promising catalysts that selectively promote the
pyrolysis at 300–450 °C. With various metal fluorides
as the catalysts, the conversion rate increases with the amount of
acidic sites, which is also reinforced by the Bader charges q. The affinity to Cl of the metal fluorides is responsible
for the selectivity. However, the high affinity to Cl also leads to
the chlorination of metal fluorides forming metal chlorides followed
by the deactivation of the catalyst. Different from other metal fluorides,
F defects play a major role in the performance of AlF3.
With an increase in F defects, the selectivity changes from vinylidene
chlorofluoride (dehydrofluorination) to VDF (dehydrochlorination),
which further confirms the role of affinity to Cl in the selectivity.