Article #275128

Atmospheric chemist whose laboratory work helped to identify the causes of acid rain and the hole in the ozone layer

Stuart Penkett’s discovery of the chemical processes that cause acid rain transformed our understanding of atmospheric pollution and what was required to deal with it.

Penkett, who has died aged 87, and his colleagues at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) in Harwell, Berkshire, published a landmark paper in 1979 in the journal Atmospheric Environment, identifying how sulphur dioxide, primarily emitted from industrial sources, is converted into sulphuric acid in clouds that subsequently falls as rain.