Paul Jozef Crutzen
DEC 03, 2015
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.031104
On this date in 1933, Nobel Prize winning atmospheric chemist Paul Jozef Crutzen was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. In 1970 he showed nitrous oxide (N2O) released from Earth’s surface survives long enough to reach the stratosphere where it is converted into nitric oxide (NO) and that the increasing use of fertilizers could have elevated atmospheric NO levels. In the stratosphere NO serves as a catalyst for the decomposition of ozone. Together with F. Sherwood Rowland and Mario J. Molina who showed that CFCs behave similarly, Crutzen was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Date in History: 3 December 1933
© 2015 American Institute of Physics
