Fertilizer already existing amount of reactive nitrogen, nitrous oxide (NO) has become the third most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and methane. It has a global warming potential 296 times larger than an equal mass of carbon dioxide and it also contributes to stratospheric ozone depletion. By changing processes and procedures, it is possible to mitigate some, but not all, of these effects on anthropogenic climate change. Methane emissions from crop fields (notably rice paddy fields) are increased by the application of ammonium-based fertilizers. These emissions contribute to global climate change as methane is a potent greenhouse gas. In Europe
Sulfur hexafluoride also the method used by the discoverers Henri Moissan and Paul Lebeau in 1901. Some other sulfur fluorides are cogenerated, but these are removed by heating the mixture to disproportionate any (which is highly toxic) and then scrubbing the product with NaOH to destroy remaining . Alternatively, utilizing bromine, sulfur hexafluoride can be synthesized from SF and CoF at lower temperatures (e.g. 100 °C), as follows: There is virtually no reaction chemistry for . A main contribution to the inertness of SF is the steric hindrance of the sulfur atom, whereas its heavier group 16 counterparts, such as SeF are