Chemists Find Way To Destroy Cfcs

January 20, 1996|Los Angeles Times

Yale University chemists have devised a safe, inexpensive and simple process that can destroy stockpiles of Freon and other ozone-depleting compounds.

Production of chlorofluorocarbons, used in air conditioners and refrigerators, was banned in the United States and most industrialized nations Jan. 1. There is no ban on use of existing stockpiles.

Destroying CFCs is considered critical in preventing them from being released into the air, where they damage the ozone layer.

Yale chemistry professor Robert Crabtree and graduate student Juan Burdeniuc report in Friday's issue of Science that passing CFCs over a bed of sodium oxalate, a cheap and readily available material, and heating them to about 550 degrees Fahrenheit make them harmless.

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