Professor Véronique Gouverneur FRS, Waynflete Professor of Chemistry at Magdalen, has been named winner of the 2026 Eni Award for Energy Transition for her research into more sustainable fluorine chemistry. She received the award from the President of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, at a ceremony in Rome on 29 October.
Fluorine chemistry underpins pharmaceuticals, medical imaging, refrigerants and lithium-ion batteries. Yet conventional production relies on hydrogen fluoride, a highly toxic and corrosive substance. Professor Gouverneur’s work, recognised under the title “Future-Proofing Fluorine Chemistry”, develops methods that avoid making and transporting such hazardous compounds, and finds ways to recover fluorine from waste, including PFAS, the so-called “forever chemicals”. The aim is a circular fluorine economy in which valuable resources are reused rather than discarded.
Her group recently showed that naturally occurring fluorspar can be converted directly into complex fluorochemicals, bypassing hydrofluoric acid altogether (Science, 2023), a discovery with the potential to change how fluorochemicals are made worldwide. Her laboratory has also developed fluorine-18 labelling methods that have accelerated drug discovery and PET imaging programmes for patient care (Nature, 2022).
Professor Gouverneur, who was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2019, said: “I am delighted to have received this honour, a recognition of advances in energy transition enabled by breakthroughs in fundamental physical sciences.”
Established in 2008, the Eni Award is an international programme recognising outstanding contributions to energy, sustainability and environmental protection.