Mario Molina, who warned of CFC threat to the ozone layer, dies

Mario Molina, who was a joint-recipient of the 1995 Nobel prize in chemistry, has died aged 77.

In 1974, Molina and his then postdoctoral supervisor Frank Sherwood Rowland sounded the alarm over the role of common household chemicals in the destruction of the ozone layer. Their research showed how chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that were widely used in aerosols and refrigerators would dissociate when subjected to intense ultraviolet light in the stratosphere. This process generates chlorine atoms that catalyse ozone decomposition.