Mario José Molina-Pasquel Henríquez (19 March 19437 October 2020) was a Mexican physical chemist. He played a pivotal role in the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, and was a co-recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his role in discovering the threat to the Earth's ozone layer from chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases. He was the first Mexican-born scientist to receive a Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the third Mexican-born person to receive a Nobel prize.

In his career, Molina held research and teaching positions at University of California, Irvine, California Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California, San Diego, and the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Molina was also Director of the Mario Molina Center for Energy and Environment in Mexico City. Molina was a climate policy advisor to the President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto.

Early life

Molina was born in Mexico City to Roberto Molina Pasquel and Leonor Henríquez. His father was a lawyer and diplomat who served as an ambassador to Ethiopia, Australia and the Philippines. His mother was a family manager. With considerably different interests than his parents, Mario Molina went on to make one of the biggest discoveries in environmental science.

Mario Molina attended both elementary and primary school in Mexico. However, before even attending high school, Mario Molina had developed a deep interest in chemistry. As a child he converted a bathroom in his home into his own little laboratory, using toy microscopes and chemistry sets. Ester Molina, Mario's aunt, and an already established chemist, nurtured his interests and aided him in completing more complex chemistry experiments.

Molina's early career consisted of research at various academic institutions. Molina went on to earn his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1965. Following this, Molina studied polymerization kinetics at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, West Germany, He then returned to Mexico where he kickstarted the first chemical engineering program at his alma mater. This was only the beginning of his chemistry endeavors.

Career

alt=photograph|left|thumb|upright|Molina at the 2011 Nobel Laureate Globalsymposium

Mario Molina began his studies at the University of California at Berkeley in 1968, where he would obtain his PhD in physical chemistry. Throughout his years at Berkeley, he participated in various research projects such as the study of molecular dynamics using chemical lasers and investigation of the distribution of internal energy in the products of chemical and photochemical reactions. They developed their theory of ozone depletion, which later influenced the mass public to reduce their use of CFCs. This kickstarted his career as a widely known chemist.

Between 1974 and 2004, Molina variously held research and teaching posts at University of California, Irvine, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he held a joint appointment in the Department of Earth Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences and the Department of Chemistry. On 1 July 2004, Molina joined the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at University of California, San Diego, and the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

In addition he established a non-profit organization, which opened the Mario Molina Center for Strategic Studies in Energy and the Environment () in Mexico City in 2005. Molina served as its director.

Molina served on the board of trustees for Science Service, now known as Society for Science & the Public, from 2000 to 2005.

He also served on the board of directors of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (2004–2014), and as a member of the MacArthur Foundation's Institutional Policy Committee and its Committee on Global Security and Sustainability.

Molina was nominated to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences as of 24 July 2000. He served as a co-chair of the Vatican workshop and co-author of the report Well Under 2 Degrees Celsius: Fast Action Policies to Protect People and the Planet from Extreme Climate Change (2017) with Veerabhadran Ramanathan and Durwood Zaelke. The report proposed 12 scalable and practical solutions which are part of a three-lever cooling strategy to mitigate climate change.

Molina was named by US president Barack Obama to form a transition team on environmental issues in 2008.

Under President Obama, he was a member of the United States President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Molina sat on the board of directors for Xyleco.

He contributed to the content of the papal encyclical Laudato Si'.

In 2020, Mario Molina contributed to research regarding the importance of wearing face masks amid the SARS-COV-2 pandemic. The research article titled "Identifying airborne transmission as the dominant route for the spread of COVID-19" was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Journal in collaboration with Renyi Zhang, Yixin Li, Annie L. Zhang and Yuan Wang.

Work on CFCs

Molina joined the lab of Professor F. Sherwood Rowland in 1973 as a postdoctoral fellow. Here, Molina continued Rowland's pioneering research into "hot atom" chemistry, which is the study of chemical properties of atoms with excess translational energy owing to radioactive processes.

This study soon led to research into chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), apparently harmless gases that were used in refrigerants, aerosol sprays, and the making of plastic foams. CFCs were being released by human activity and were known to be accumulating in the atmosphere. The basic scientific question Molina asked was "What is the consequence of society releasing something to the environment that wasn't there before?"

:Cl· + → ClO· +

ClO is also a radical, which reacts with another ozone molecule to release two more O<sub>2</sub> molecules and a Cl atom.

:ClO· + → Cl· + 2

The radical Cl atom is not consumed by this pair of reactions, so it remains in the system. At the time, CFCs were widely used as chemical propellants and refrigerants. Molina and Rowland followed up the short Nature paper with a 150-page report for the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which they made available at the September 1974 meeting of the American Chemical Society in Atlantic City. This report and an ACS-organized press conference, in which they called for a complete ban on further releases of CFCs into the atmosphere, brought national attention.

Rowland and Molina's findings were disputed by commercial manufacturers and chemical industry groups, and a public consensus on the need for action only began to emerge in 1976 with the publication of a review of the science by the National Academy of Sciences. Rowland and Molina's work was further supported by evidence of the long-term decrease in stratospheric ozone over Antarctica, published by Joseph C. Farman and his co-authors in Nature in 1985. Ongoing work led to the adoption of the Montreal Protocol (an agreement to cut CFC production and use) by 56 countries in 1987, and to further steps towards the worldwide elimination of CFCs from aerosol cans and refrigerators. By establishing this protocol, the amount of CFCs being emitted into the atmosphere decreased significantly, and while doing so, it has paced the rate of ozone depletion and even slowed climate change. The citation specifically recognized him and his co-awardees for "their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone."

Following this in 1985, after Joseph Farman discovered a hole in the ozone layer in Antarctica, Mario Molina led a research team to further investigate the cause of rapid ozone depletion in Antarctica. It was found that the stratospheric conditions in Antarctica were ideal for chlorine activation, which ultimately causes ozone depletion.

Honors

thumb|right|Molina (left) with his countryman [[Luis E. Miramontes, co-inventor of the first oral contraceptive, ]]

Molina received numerous awards and honors, including sharing the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Paul J. Crutzen and F. Sherwood Rowland for their discovery of the role of CFCs in ozone depletion.

He was elected to the United States Institute of Medicine in 1996,

and The National College of Mexico in 2003.

In 2007, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society. He was also a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences.

Molina won the 1987 Esselen Award of the Northeast section of the American Chemical Society, the 1988 Newcomb Cleveland Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the 1989 NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Advancement and the 1989 United Nations Environmental Programme Global 500 Award. In 1990, The Pew Charitable Trusts Scholars Program in Conservation and the Environment honored him as one of ten environmental scientists and awarded him a $150,000 grant.

In 1996, Molina received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. He received the 1998 Willard Gibbs Award from the Chicago Section of the American Chemical Society and the 1998 American Chemical Society Prize for Creative Advances in Environment Technology and Science. In 2003, Molina received the 9th Annual Heinz Award in the Environment.

Asteroid 9680 Molina is named in his honor.

On 8 August 2013, US president Barack Obama announced Molina as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, saying in the press release:

Mario Molina is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award (Champions of the Earth) in 2014.

On 19 March 2023, Molina was the subject of a Google Doodle in Mexico, the United States, Brazil, India, Germany, France, and other countries.

Honorary degrees

Molina received more than thirty honorary degrees.

  • Tufts University (2003)
  • Duke University (2009)
  • Harvard University (2012)
  • Mexican Federal Universities: National of Mexico (1996), Metropolitana (2004), Chapingo (2007), National Polytechnic (2009)
  • Mexican State Universities: Hidalgo (2002), State of Mexico (2006), Michoacan (2009), Guadalajara (2010), San Luis Potosí (2011)
  • U.S. Universities: Miami (2001), Florida International (2002), Southern Florida (2005), Claremont Graduate (announced 2013)
  • U.S. Colleges: Connecticut (1998), Trinity (2001), Washington (2011), Whittier (2012), Williams (2015)
  • Canadian Universities: Calgary (1997), Waterloo (2002), British Columbia (2011)
  • European Universities: East Anglia (1996), Alfonso X (2009), Complutense of Madrid (2012), Free of Brussels (2010),

Personal life

Molina married fellow chemist Luisa Y. Tan in July 1973. They met each other when Molina was pursuing his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. They moved to Irvine, California in the fall of 1973. The couple divorced in 2005. Their son, Felipe Jose Molina, was born in 1977. Molina married his second wife, Guadalupe Álvarez, in February 2006.

Works

  • Molina, Luisa T., Molina, Mario J. and Renyi Zhang. "Laboratory Investigation of Organic Aerosol Formation from Aromatic Hydrocarbons", Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States Department of Energy, (August 2006).
  • Molina, Luisa T., Molina, Mario J., et al. "Characterization of Fine Particulate Matter (PM) and Secondary PM Precursor Gases in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area", Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States Department of Energy, (October 2008).

Notes

References

  • Centro Mario Molina
  • including the Nobel Lecture on 8 December 1995 "Polar Ozone Depletion"
  • Oral history interview with Mario J. Molina in Science History Institute Digital Collections