3. How are Specialty Chemicals Designed and Produced?

Another important concept is that an atom of any element has a series of layers of electrons, called shells, and with the exception of the innermost shell, each can hold up to eight electrons. An atom that doesn't have a filled outer shell will form chemical bonds with other atoms, if it can, to fill that outer shell.

An atom of elemental fluorine, for example, has a total of nine electrons, and has an outer shell that is 'missing' one electron. It's this atomic structure that makes fluorine a highly reactive element when it's present in its pure form. You could say that fluorine 'wants' to react with other chemicals so badly that it will react with almost anything in its efforts to fill up that outer shell. This makes fluorine-and other halogen gases-quite important in the production of certain specialty chemicals. These halogen gases form compounds that are highly stable, because of their special atomic structure.