Nanotechnology Could Save The Ozone Layer

Liz writes "Whilst experimenting with nanospheres and perfluorodecalin, a liquid used in the production of synthetic blood, researchers at Germany's University of Ulm have stumbled across a phenomenon that could ultimately help remove ozone-harming chemicals from the atmosphere. See this article for more details."

Comments

The second step?

[kruetz]

Wow! This would be great news in the battle against global warming. Down here in Australia, the recent discovery of a convict's sea-height log from the early 1800s or thereabouts showed that the sea level has increased by a moderate amount over the last 200 years.

Perhaps this could relieve the pressure slightly on Earth, when countries like the USA and Australia won't sign on the Kyoto agreement.

The second step he mentions - actually REPAIRING the ozone layer would be a phenomenal achievement, but it may in fact worsen global warming, if the afore-mentioned countries think "Hey! We don't need to worry about global warming! Let's just keep going on as before!"

Kudos to the University of Ulm!

Re:The second step?

[cp99]

By "cherry-picking", I mean that Daly looks for data that supports his case, while ignoring data that fails to support his case.

He does his science like a lawyer presents a case (tries to downplay or ignore any evidence which is damaging to his case), not as a scientist presents a theory (tries to explain all of the available evidence).

An example of this, is his graph of sea levels at Tuvalu (sp?). He presents some raw data, which is extremely difficult to interpret, and from this concludes that the sea levels are not rising. What he omits is that real analysis of the data (as opposed to just eyeballing it) some that the sea levels are rising.

Asking somebody to go through peer review isn't too much. There is no reason why he couldn't submit some of his criticism to a scientific journal, while publishing a more basic version on website.

As for you submitting his site for consideration, that's fine. But like any pseudoscientific source, expect it to be judged harshly.

someone brought up the point of...

[C21]

who is going to pay for this nanotech ozone repair gas, well...on the other hand, who is going to pay to overhaul the car manufacturing plants, car repair stations, remove the gas stations, install hydrogen fuel stations, overhaul highways so as to attempt to funnel massive amounts of water runoff from tailpipes, etc. The answer is YOU, as a taxpayer (and a car buyer/owner in this case). The same applies to this ozone deal, once we have found a solution the economic problem will be dispersed evenly throughout everyone.

An unrealistic application

[juushin]

While I found Liz Kalaugher's article to be well written, there are serious issues with the science that is being reported AND the unrealistic application of using this technology to clean up CFCs.

First - the self-assembly of solids at the interface of perfluorodecalin and water is not a new system - this area was pioneered by researchers at Harvard University. Thus the group at Uln is clearly reporting a phenomenon that is clearly not new. Add to this that they haven't even clearly characterized the phenomenon that they are claiming, which makes things more uninteresting.

Second - since when are CFCs anything like perfluorodecalin? This would be on par with comparing apples and oranges. If one compares the physical characterics of these molecules such as the dipole moment, solvation energy, etc.., it would become clear that they would be chemically unsimiliar and would hence behave differently.

In all reality this report represents yet another example of nano pie-in-the-sky.

Thanks to those that have clearly posted that regardless of whether this system could be used to clean CFCs it would be of little use - CFCs have been banned in most developed nations for years.

Let's see some articles on real nano work by those that are clearly pioneering this area - Charles Lieber, Hongkun Park, or Paul Alivasatos.