system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5 - There are gases that destroy the ozone layer. Shouldn't there be a compound out there that had the opposite effect?

The title's the question. I've thought about it for some time now, but I can't find an answer.
gpt
The fundamental issue is energy.  There's more energy stored in 2 O₃ (ozone) molecules than in 3 O₂ (oxygen gas) molecules.

So a chemical that can turn ozone into oxygen can do it over and over again, liberating energy as it goes.  Kind of like how you can burn down a house using just a single match: a single chlorine atom, for example, can destroy a hundred thousand ozone molecules.

On the other hand, turning oxygen into ozone requires *depositing* energy.  Lightning and sunlight can do this, which is why we have an ozone layer to begin with, but any chemical that did it would have to be supplying the energy by destroying itself, and so could only do it once--*not* a hundred thousand times.