CFC-driven catalytic ozone depletion
Destrucción catalítica del ozono estratosférico por CFC
- Date
- 1974 · confidence high
- Place
- University of California, Irvine, United States
- Credited to
- Mario Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland (NOx cycles: Paul Crutzen, 1970)
- People
- 👤 Frank Sherwood Rowland1927–2012👤 Mario Molina1943–2020
- Field
- Matter & energy
What was discovered
Chlorofluorocarbons, inert in the troposphere, are photolysed in the stratosphere and release chlorine that catalytically destroys ozone. The prediction was confirmed by the Antarctic ozone hole (Farman, 1985) and led to the Montreal Protocol.
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1995 (Crutzen, Molina and Rowland).
What it led to
- Atmospheric chemistry
- Montreal Protocol (1987)
- HFC and HFO substitutes
- Science of global change
Built on
- Freon-12 (dichlorodifluoromethane)1930
- radical kinetics
- Chapman's atmospheric photochemistry
Made possible
- alternative refrigerants