Abstract
The decomposition of chloroflurocarbons (CFCs) in the troposphere with the aid of natural lightning energy is calculated. The scheme is to use the reaction of dissociative attachment of an electron to a CFC molecule, producing Cl − . An upper limit to the decomposition rate due only to natural lightning discharges is found to be ~900 kg in one year, which is only about one-millionth of the annual production rate of CFC molecules worldwide. A method to increase the efficiency of decomposition is proposed, which uses negative ion drift under the static electric field near the thundercloud. The energy consumption to decompose one CFC molecule is found to be 1 × 10 7 eV at a minimum, which leads to the maximum decomposition rate of 4 × 10 6 kg/year, almost 0.5% of the annual production rate, which, unfortunately, is still not significant.
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