We all know our mother Earth. The value of Earth! It is our shield. One of the mysteries of the Earth is we are being protected by the earth, from dangerous rays and lights from space.
What are these rays?
We see colourful lights in the evenings on the sky looking beautiful. Like pale green, violet and some red lights, shades are found. These rays may burn a human body in one second. Can you believe?
Yes. They are. But they are reflected back by the earth’s magnetic field. EARTH PRODUCES MAGNETIC FIELD LIKE A MAGNET. It has magnetic properties. Apart from these mysteries, we all know a familiar one – OZONE LAYER. The blanket of the earth. We learn many facts and uses of this ozone layer. To spread out the value of this ozone layer and to create awareness about it, every year on September 16, we celebrate INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PRESERVATION OF OZONE LAYER AND WORLD OZONE DAY.
What is Ozone?
Chemically, ozone is an allotrope of Oxygen. It is a colourless gas with pungent smell.
- Ozone is used in water treatment plants.
- Used in photocopiers.
- Lasers
- Used instead of Chlorine in sanitizers sometimes.
- Purifiers for water
- Food preserver.
Chemically ozone has such uses in our day-to-day life.
What is Ozone layer?
The blanket around the earth is ozone layer. It not only completely consists of Ozone. But some trace amounts of other gases.
It is located in the stratosphere.
It has the ability to absorb sun’s ultraviolet radiation.
Harmful, Sun’s UV:
Exposure to these rays may cause:
1.Wrinkled skin
2.Leathery Skin
3.Liver spots
4.Eye Blind
5.Skin cancers
6.Affects our Immune system.
How ozone can protect us?
Ozone itself acts a filter for short wavelength materials and stops out the UV rays and other harmful radiations produced from the space and space materials. We learnt the harmful effects of UV. All these UV and other rays are simply absorbed by the ozone layer. Now the value of ozone must be known.
Depletion Of Ozone Layer:
Before knowing the chemical reason behind this, know the common reasons. As known * Emission of poisonous gases
*CFC i.e., the refrigerant materials (This process is now stopped considering the depletion of Ozone)
*Also, CCl4 found in some insecticides and so on.
*Nitric oxide, Carbon Dioxide and nitro gases deplete them.
*All Non-Eco-friendly materials support depletion of ozone.
*Also, some types of Chloroforms.
Chemical Reason:
To understand the below given equation, you need not have prior chemistry knowledge. Simply explaining the above concept chemically as a proof!
NO (Nitrous Oxide) + O3(Ozone) = NO2(Nitrogen Dioxide) + O2 (Oxygen)
Just know the concept behind this. NO is Nitric Oxide (exhaust of aeroplanes or jet planes) when combines with O3 (Ozone) in the atmosphere, deplete ozone into NO2 (Nitrogen Dioxide) and O2 (Oxygen).
Now you might have known how it is depleted.
How to protect Ozone layer?
Almost, we are depleting ozone layer already and made thinner in the past days.
Awareness is created much and many steps are also taken to protect the layer.
Such as:
1.Eco friendly vehicles.
2.Bio fuel
3.Tree growth in possible areas and so on.
Vehicles operated using electricity is most peculiar.
Now what measures we must take?
- Try the most to quit bike rides or fuel using vehicles.
- Just know some bits about nature. What it is doing to us and what we do to us.
- So, learn that and don’t omit the nature study. You can give own suggestions to others when you do this.
- Avoid disinfectants that contains the above-mentioned chemicals. Thus, you can also contribute some discrete amount in protecting the nature.
SAVE OZONE LAYER! CELEBRATE THIS DAY AND THANK IT BY FOLLOWING THE ABOVE STEPS….
HAPPY OZONE DAY
Author : Krishnapriya Kesavan
