Editing Chlorofluorocarbon (section)

===Commercial development and use in fire extinguishing===
[[File:CFCs.svg|class=skin-invert-image|thumb|300px]]
During [[World War II]], various chloroalkanes were in standard use in military aircraft, although these early halons suffered from excessive toxicity. Nevertheless, after the war they slowly became more common in civil aviation as well. In the 1960s, fluoroalkanes and bromofluoroalkanes became available and were quickly recognized as being highly effective fire-fighting materials. Much early research with [[Bromotrifluoromethane|Halon 1301]] was conducted under the auspices of the US Armed Forces, while [[Bromochlorodifluoromethane|Halon 1211]] was, initially, mainly developed in the UK. By the late 1960s they were standard in many applications where water and dry-powder extinguishers posed a threat of damage to the protected property, including computer rooms, telecommunications switches, laboratories, museums and art collections. Beginning with [[warship]]s, in the 1970s, bromofluoroalkanes also progressively came to be associated with rapid knockdown of severe fires in confined spaces with minimal risk to personnel.

By the early 1980s, bromofluoroalkanes were in common use on aircraft, ships, and large vehicles as well as in computer facilities and galleries. However, concern was beginning to be expressed about the impact of chloroalkanes and bromoalkanes on the [[ozone layer]]. The [[Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer]] did not cover bromofluoroalkanes under the same restrictions, because emergency discharge of extinguishing systems was thought to be too small in volume to produce a significant impact and too important to human safety for restriction. Instead, the consumption of bromofluoroalkanes was frozen at 1986 levels.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer |url=https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/vcpol/vcpol.html |access-date=2023-12-12 |website=legal.un.org}}</ref>