Thursday 19th October 2023
Difficulty: Medium
The man who broke the world (Quiz #335)
Photo by Justus Menke (Unsplash)
Thomas Midgley Jr. (1889-1944) was an American mechanical and chemical engineer who played a major role, in the first half of the 20th century, in developing leaded petrol (tetraethyl lead), which solved the problem of "engine knock", and some of the first chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), used in refrigeration.
Both products had catastrophic effects on the environment and human health. Leaded petrol introduced toxic lead into the environment, to be absorbed by all living things, while CFCs depleted the ozone layer in the atmosphere that protects us from ultraviolet radiation. They are now banned from common use.
1. Midgley was well aware that lead is toxic, and also knew that a much safer alternative - ethanol - existed. Why didn't the DuPont Corporation and Standard Oil use ethanol instead?
2. Which was the first country to completely ban leaded petrol?
3. The Montreal Protocol, signed in September 1987 by 24 nations, established a timetable for the world to phase out production and consumption of CFCs. When is the ozone layer over the Antarctic expected to have fully recovered from the damage done by CFCs?
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