He was one of the first to warn of the ozone hole: Now the Nobel laureate in chemistry, Mario Molina, has died at the age of 77. He spent part of his studies in Freiburg.
The Mexican Mario Molina, who became known as the co-discoverer of the ozone hole, died at the age of 77. This was announced by the Mexican university UNAM on Wednesday – the day of the announcement of this year’s recipients of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which Molina had received in 1995. Mexico’s President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador expressed his regrets on Twitter. At first there was no information about the cause of death.
Studied in Freiburg
Molina grew up in Mexico City. He spent part of his studies in Freiburg im Breisgau before receiving his doctorate in 1972 from the University of California in Berkeley. Together with his colleagues Sherwood Rowland and Paul Crutzen, who later became director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, the chemical engineer warned against the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as early as 1974 and predicted that the ozone layer would decrease significantly in a few decades .
The Mission of the United Nations in Mexico praised Molina in a communication as a pioneer of atmospheric chemistry. His work was made possible by the Montreal Protocol of 1987 – an environmental agreement that largely stopped the production of ozone-depleting chemicals. During Barack Obama’s presidency in the United States, Molina was a member of Barack Obama’s Advisory Council on Science and Technology.
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