Chemistry textbooks for universities talk only about the instability of ozone as a compound of three oxygen atoms into a molecule, but I did not find what the time of ozone recombination into oxygen is. In the FED – a five-volume Physical Encyclopedic Dictionary, it was not mentioned at all, except for the usually illiterate chatter about the ozone layer in the atmosphere, supposedly protecting us from … and other ordinary stupid gibberish.

I checked: I took a four-liter plastic jar, put the output porous filter from the ozonator in it and put the ozone monitor in the same place. The ozonator quickly raised the ozone concentration to 14 ppm. I turned it off and tried to set the decay rate by the chronometer. The concentration dropped to seven millionths in a few seconds, to 3.5 millionths also very quickly, and this continued with a gradual slowdown to a concentration of 0.82 ppm. Here I have already managed (and then very approximately) to estimate the half-life to 0.41 ppm in 25-30 seconds. The further one to 0.205 ppm slowed down again and the decay time increased to about forty seconds.

To summarize: The half-life could not be determined, since with decreasing concentration it increases exponentially from seconds, and even fractions of them, to tens of seconds. The higher the ozone concentration, the shorter the half–life, the lower — the longer, but this dependence is nonlinear, and, as mentioned above, exponential.

Why?

I think the main role here is played by the process of autocatalysis of oxygen from ozone: Atomic oxygen itself plays the role of a catalyst. The higher the concentration of ozone, the more atomic oxygen is released during the decay of its molecules, and the more it helps to accelerate the decay. A “chain reaction” (more precisely, an avalanche reaction) of ozone decay, like uranium 235 in an explosion.

I think that at very high concentrations, ozone becomes a self-exploding substance. After all, the energy reserve in it is quite large. The reaction of ozone formation is endothermic. That is, it requires energy consumption “from the outside”, and decay is an exothermic reaction. That is, energy in the form of heat and, possibly, radiation is released, which means that at sufficiently high concentrations, ozone becomes a spontaneously exploding substance.

It occurred to me that it was precisely this highly concentrated ozone, which occurs in the air during very powerful discharges of linear lightning, that turns into ball lightning. The ozone energy in it is sufficient for some time of existence, and if the intense decay is rapid enough due to the avalanche-like reaction of atomic oxygen release, a ball lightning explosion occurs.

If the process is less active and “balanced,” it disappears spontaneously.

I remind again that I am NOT a chemist. And therefore, my hypothetical assumptions should be accepted with maximum criticality, without “going overboard, however.”

22 VI 2026