Such compounds were known to be volatile and chemically inert, both important properties for the team studying their use in refrigeration. The team focused their effort on compounds containing carbon and halogens such as fluorine and chlorine. (1889-1944) worked to develop nontoxic, nonflammable alternatives to the refrigerants. A team of chemists at Frigidaire led by Thomas Midgely Jr. Though effective, the compounds were toxic and flammable, and exposure to them could result in serious injury or death. In the 1920s, refrigeration and air conditioning systems used compounds such as ammonia, chloromethane, propane and sulfur dioxide as refrigerants. Landmark Lesson Plan: Chlorofluorocarbons and Ozone Depletion These same characteristics, however, also made them a danger to life on Earth. The compounds are inert and essentially nontoxic, characteristics that made them well-suited for these applications. At the time, CFCs were in wide use in refrigeration, air conditioning and aerosol spray cans. That stratospheric ozone absorbs ultraviolet radiation that otherwise would reach the surface of Earth. Rowland, a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Irvine, and Molina, a postdoctoral fellow in Rowland’s laboratory, had shown that chlorofluorocarbons-CFCs-could destroy ozone, a molecule made up of three oxygen atoms, O 3, in Earth’s stratosphere. Crutzen of the Max Plank Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, another pioneer in stratospheric ozone research. Molina (*1943) sharing the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Paul J. Sherwood Rowland (1927-2012) and Mario J. It set off fierce debates, led to a global environmental treaty restricting the use of a broad class of chemicals, and changed the way humans viewed their impact on Earth’s environment. The research described in the short paper, however, fell like a scientific bombshell, one whose repercussions would be felt around the world. The language is dry and academic, as is appropriate for the abstract of a scientific paper in the prestigious journal Nature. En español: Los clorofluorocarbonos y el agujero de ozonoĭedicated at the University of California, Irvine on April 18, 2017.
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