H2O2 tagged posts

Goethe University researchers investigate oxidative stress in mice. Originally, oxygen radicals — reactive oxygen species, or ROS for short — were considered to be exclusively harmful in the body. They are produced, for example, by smoking or UV radiation. Because of their high reactivity, they can damage many important molecules in cells, including the hereditary molecule DNA. As a result, there is a risk of inflammatory reactions and the degeneration of affected cells into cancer cells.

Because of their damaging effect, however, ROS are also deliberately produced by the body, for example by immune or lung epithelial cells, which destroy invading ...

W. Mtangi et al., Control of Electrons’ Spin Eliminates Hydrogen Peroxide Formation During Water Splitting, Journal of the American Chemical Society (30 January 2017). DOI: 10.1021/jacs.6b12971

A big obstacle in the production of hydrogen through water splitting is that H2O2 is also formed, which affects the efficiency stability of the reaction and the stability of the production. Researchers have now succeeded in controlling the spin of electrons in the reaction and thereby almost fully suppress the production of hydrogen peroxide in the electrochemical cell.

Led by professors Bert Meijer (Eindhoven University of Technology) and Ron Naaman (Weizmann Institute), the researchers are the first to have specifically investigated the role of the spin – the internal magnetic moment – of electron...

This nanostructured device, about half the size of a postage stamp, uses sunlight to quickly disinfect water. It consists of thin flakes of molybdenum disulfide arranged like walls on a glass surface and topped with a thin layer of copper. Light falling on the walls triggers formation of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and other “reactive oxygen species” that kill bacteria. Credit: C. Liu et al., Nature Nanotechnology

In many parts of the world, the only way to make germy water safe is by boiling, which consumes precious fuel, or by putting it out in the sun in a plastic bottle so ultraviolet rays will kill the microbes. But because UV rays carry only 4% of the sun’s total energy, the UV method takes 6 to 48 hours, limiting the amount of water people can disinfect this way.

Now researchers at the...

Instead of reacting together on the surface of the catalyst (the palladium cluster), the hydrogen atoms dissociate into their components — protons and electrons. The protons enter the surrounding solution of water and methanol, while the electrons flow through the palladium itself into oxygen molecules. Credit: American Chemical Society

It paves the way to design improved catalysts to produce H2O2 to use in place of harmful chlorine, regardless of the scale of the production facility. From the polyurethane that makes our car seats to the paper made from bleached wood pulp, chlorine can be found in a variety of large-scale manufacturing processes...