Cause of Ozone Depletion: Two Engineers

Hmmmmm, I thought it was from all of the live stock farting and burping. But h ey, lay blame where you may... the depletion of the ozone is gonna lay on the laps of these guys until they find others to implicate, huh? Nice...

Waaaoouuhhh..! Is does a pain for sure. I do in my modest little opinion would be nicer to had already in place the retrofit refrigerant well established before have the rule at full force so everyone been in the same page all. But as you know sometimes is hard to bit 'Murphy Law' in the same time. And the equipment to reciclying is not too cheap neither my friends, I don't Know what to tell ya' at this point but better to stay in top then anyway, just in case. Allset pal's thanks for the input and feedback.

Keep it Running,

MC

They should have known better......its their job to know and to be fined when NOT doing the job correctly!!!!

Meanwhile, now that the ozone hole is starting to close, environmentalists are becoming concerned that the UV absorption at lower altitudes will alter the closed circular wind patterns over the antarctic and draw warmer air in causing an increase in melting.

So in other words, damned if you do, damned if you don't....

I was told CFC is heavier then air. How could it get up that high to harm the ozone layer?

Also isn't ozone harmful to our lung? There are air cleaner which use catalysis to convert ozone to oxygen. So will I get sue if I use one of those at home?

Ah yes, the ozone hole. That was the one over Mt Erebus in Antarctica, right? The Earth's largest active volcano? The world was going to come to an end? Eejits

Rorschach--I see Siamese Scotty dogs posing for a code of arms, is that bad?

As far as wind is concerned we put enough windmills down there we can stop the wind completely and get loads of power--20% of the time and 6.7% of that is when we need it(the other 93.3% of the time we will be in the dark and cold, which will help with global warming or global cooling whichever you prefer).

Pineapple--CFCs and HCFCs are heavier than air--but it is when the Chlorine atom escapes from the compound(it is lighter than air) and travels to the ionosphere and(opposites attract) attaches itself to the ozone molecule and is then vulnerable to UV rays which split them apart------Funny thing is that if the theory held true the entire ozone layer would be individual atoms of Chlorine and Oxygen and no ozone. The Chlorine go home after the dastardly deed? Need a chemical spanking by a Guru now.

OOOOppps again.

The previous post was mine

Kilgore,

I'm glad you prepared yourself for a spanking! Just about everything you said in your last paragraph is incorrect.

The CFCs reach the ozone layer as whole molecules.

The Chlorine is released in the stratosphere, by UV light. The free Cl reacts directly with the ozone, no UV is required once free Cl is formed.

The Ozone layer is in the stratosphere, not the ionosphere.

It has nothing to do with "opposites attracting".

Chlorine is heavier than air.

Your understanding of the theory is incorrect. Ozone is continuously being created and destroyed in the ozone layer, as a natural process. Even if the layer was loaded with Cl, ozone would still be formed. It just would not last too long.

And yes, the chlorine does go home after it's dastardly deed. The Cl destroys the ozone by catalytic reactions, meaning that many, many ozone molecules can be destroyed by 1 Cl. However, eventually the Cl reacts with other compounds to form more stable compounds (HCl as an example). Being water soluble, these compounds then return to earth as precipitation.

Hope the spanking was not too bad!

Tad

P.S.

My favorite author is K. Vonnegut

That wasn't so bad. Thanks Tad. My memory doesn't serve me well enough--One question, or two, since I coaxed you out--Why Does freon lay low--Compressor oil? and what about Halon? If you have time.

KVjr--Me too.

Yeah.. So far if I got it rigth, the refrigerant tend to mixed up within oil in the compressor if let it sit stand for a while and this is why the use of a heater by compressor housing to keep it warm and separate from oil from the compressor crank inside housing. The halons refrigerants, I do believe they're no too good for the ozone neither due it compounds reactions up there by stratospheric zone.

Now there are more enviro friendly compounds which are the standards for new refri-systems. Those are good news for the long run down the road, I'll stay tune and check out further as things keep improving latetly. All wired-up here...and hot too.

Cool Topic,

MC

For Tad

--freon testers--whether flame or electronic sniffers always seem to find it the bottom of tubes or spaces that confine it--Heavier than air? I know the theory states that it reaches the STRATOSPHERE, but I can't remember what series of events happen to enable it to get there. Can you shed some light on it?

The CFCs are all much heavier than air. When released in relatively calm air, they will "sink" and pool in low lying areas. However, this is a temporary situation. Eventually, air currents and diffusion will cause the CFCs to completely mix with air, and become uniformly distributed. They then reach the ozone layer just as any other constituent in air.

This is a bit simplistic, as there are other mechanisms at work, such as Brownian motion, which keeps gases dispersed and drives diffusion, as well as weather situations which drive transport to the upper atmosphere.

Tad

Thanks, Tad.

I would suggest, though i have not studied chemistry in a few years, that even a chlorine free radical is heavier than most constituent molecules in air (definitely heavier than O2 or N2). Chlorine atoms weigh approximately 35.5 g/mole (a Chlorine molecule will weigh slightly less than 71 g/mole), O2 weighs slightly less than 32 g/mole. This is why chlorine gas was used in WW I, it stayed close to the ground and would move with advective currents along the ground to finsd depressions where it would collect, trenches were local depresssion full of soldiers.