OZ4C. Stay Current—CFCs Are Invented

2023-03-15. The Brilliant Inventor Who Made Two of History’s Biggest Mistakes. [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/magazine/cfcs-inventor.html] By Steven Johnson, The New York Times. Excerpt: While The Times praised him as “one of the nation’s outstanding chemists” in its obituary, today [Thomas Midgley Jr.] is best known for the terrible consequences of that chemistry, thanks to the stretch of his career from 1922 to 1928, during which he managed to invent leaded gasoline and also develop the first commercial use of the chlorofluorocarbons that would create a hole in the ozone layer….

2014-03-09. Mysterious new man-made gases pose threat to ozone layer. Excerpt: …Lying in the atmosphere, between 15 and 30km above the surface of the Earth, the ozone layer plays a critical role in blocking harmful UV rays, which cause cancers in humans and reproductive problems in animals. …Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey were the first to discover a huge “hole” in the ozone over Antarctica in 1985. The evidence quickly pointed to CFC gases, which were invented in the 1920s, and were widely used in refrigeration and as aerosol propellants in products like hairsprays and deodorants. …A total global ban on production came into force in 2010. Now, researchers from the University of East Anglia have discovered evidence of four new gases that can destroy ozone and are getting into the atmosphere from as yet unidentified sources. …Three of the gases are CFCs and one is a hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC), which can also damage ozone. …They estimate that about 74,000 tonnes of these gases have been released into the atmosphere. Two of the gases are accumulating at significant rates. …”We don’t know where the new gases are being emitted from and this should be investigated. Possible sources include feedstock chemicals for insecticide production and solvents for cleaning electronic components.” …The four new gases have been identified as CFC-112, CFC112a, CFC-113a, HCFC-133a …The research has been published in the journal, Nature Geoscience…. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26485048. Matt McGrath, BBC News.

9 Febuary 2004. NASA RELEASE: 04-057. SCIENTISTS FIND OZONE-DESTROYING MOLECULE. Using measurements from a NASA aircraft flying over the Arctic, Harvard University scientists have made the first observations of a molecule that researchers have long theorized plays a key role in destroying stratospheric ozone, chlorine peroxide. Thomas Midgley 

• CFCs: THEIR ALTERNATIVES AND EFFECTS ON THE OZONE — reversing the process of ozone depletion by means of electron photodetachment.