Why Free Radical Cl Sux

To explain in the simplest way first, then some fun chemical equations..........CFC's get up into the stratosphere, you know the area above the troposphere (where we live). Stratosphere is ozone. Ozone is O3. Photons (sunlight) hit it. Causing a Cl (Chlorine) to break off. Cl becomes a free radical or also sometimes refered to as atomic when it breaks off. (Normally it occurs as Cl2.) When it breaks off it destorys O3. One chlorine atom can destroy over 100,000 ozone molecules. The net effect : destroy s ozone faster than it is naturally be created. Ozone absorbs ultraviolet rays, esp. UVB. O3. Keepin us safe, yay for ozone! good up high bad near by.................now to move on to some fun stuff..................

Main focus, CFC-12 [CF2Cl2 (gas), dichlorodifluoromethane] is formed by replacing the four hydrogen atoms in methane with two chlorine atoms and two fluorine atoms. Through the "Chapman reations" we can see how O3 saves us and is naturally occuring:

O2  + hv -> O+ O   (hv is shorthand for wavelength dependent light)
O +O2  (M) -> O3  (M is a third body which carries away energy)
O3 + hv -> O  +O2

The oxygen molecule (O2) soaks in the light from the sun, and breaks into two oxygen atoms. The thrid part of the reation is what is vital to saving our skin and creating the strososphere. This process keeps cycling. Now when dichlorodifluoromethane gets introduced (or any other ozone delepting compound), the Cl gets introduced into the system. An artificial reaction occurs as a result of CFC release. As stated earlier when a solar photon strikes a chlorofluorocarbon, such as CFC-12, chlorine can be released to catalytically destroy ozone
Chlorine acts as a catalyst to destroy ozone by the following process:

CCl2F2 hv->Cl CClF2

O3+ hv->O +O2

O3 +Cl->ClO +O2

O+ ClO->Cl +O2

Net: O+O3->2O2

So pretty much, Cl destorys the ozone which causes many problems............................not like anyone is really going to be still reading this by this point.................................