Online lecture by Hartwig Müller on 19 October 2021, 2 pm - 3 pm

Moderation: Klaus-Peter Jäckel

The author first came into contact with the products of human activity in the form of the small molecule CF₄ when he started his career in 1977. After elaborate processing of huge quantities of air in cryogenic rectification apparatuses to produce krypton and xenon, a trace impurity was found in the krypton, which jeopardised its industrial use as a lamp gas. Starting from this incident at the beginning of his career, he was repeatedly confronted with the legacy of industrial activities in the atmosphere, culminating in the ozone hole discovered in the 1980s and the harmful effects of ground-level ozone. Step by step, these experimental findings are used to illustrate research into the atmosphere and the modern threats to life on earth from the burning of fossil fuels to generate energy.