Science, Vol.267, No.5194, 82-84, 1995
Ozone Destruction by Chlorine - The Impracticality of Mitigation Through Ion Chemistry
The feasibility of using negative ion chemistry to mitigate stratospheric ozone depletion by chlorine-containing radicals, as proposed recently, is addressed here. Previous in situ measurements of the negative ion composition of the stratosphere show that chlorine-containing ions represent only a small fraction of total ions. New measurements of the negative ion temporal evolution in the stratosphere show that the fractional abundance of chlorine-containing ions is never greater than 1 percent at any time in the ion evolution. On the basis of these and other arguments, using negative ion chemistry to mitigate ozone depletion by chlorine-containing compounds is not feasible.