Abstract.The atmospheric chemistry of sulphuryl fluoride, SO 2 F 2 , was investigated in a series of laboratory studies.A competitive rate method, using pulsed laser photolysis (PLP) to generate O( 1 D) coupled to detection of OH by laser induced fluorescence (LIF), was used to determine the overall rate coefficient for the reaction O( 1 D)+SO 2 F 2 →products (R1) of k 1 (220-300 K) = (1.3±0.2) × 10 −10 cm 3 molecule −1 s −1 . Monitoring the O( 3 P) product (R1a) enabled the contribution (α) of the physical quenching process (in which SO 2 F 2 is not consumed) to be determined as α (225-296 K)=(0.55±0.04). Separate, relative rate measurements at 298 K provided a rate coefficient for reactive loss of O( 1 D), k 1b , of (5.8 ± 0.8) × 10 −11 cm 3 molecule −1 s −1 in good agreement with the value calculated from (1−α)×k 1 =(5.9±1.0)×10 −11 cm 3 molecule −1 s −1 . Upper limits for the rate coefficients for reaction of SO 2 F 2 with OH (R2, using PLP-LIF), and with O 3 (R3, static reactor) were determined as k 2 (294 K)<1×10 −15 cm 3 molecule −1 s −1 and k 3 (294 K)<1×10 −23 cm 3 molecule −1 s −1 . In experiments using the wetted-wall flow tube technique, no loss of SO 2 F 2 onto aqueous surfaces was observed, allowing an upper limit for the uptake coefficient of γ (pH 2-12)<1×10 −7 to be determined. These results indicate that SO 2 F 2 has no significant loss processes in the troposphere, and a very long stratospheric lifetime. Integrated band intensities for SO 2 F 2 infrared absorption features between 6 and 19 µm were obtained, and indicate a significant global warming potential for this molecule. In the course of this work, ambient temperature rate coefficients for the reactions O( 1 D) with several important atmospheric species were deter-