Illuminating Science: X-Rays Visualize How One of Nature’s Strongest Bonds Breaks — Scientists have deciphered |
Researchers have elucidated the process by which an activated catalyst can break down the strong carbon-hydrogen bonds of alkanes such as methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The study reveals the catalyst becomes active by a short flash of light, proceeding to break down the C-H bonds almost without any energy.
Methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases, is being released into the atmosphere at an increasing rate by livestock farming as well as the continuing unfreezing of permafrost. Transforming methane and longer-chain alkanes into less harmful and in fact useful chemicals would remove the associated threats, and in turn make a huge feedstock for the chemical industry available.
In two experiments conducted at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, the researchers were able to follow the delicate exchange of electrons between a rhodium catalyst and an octane C-H group as it gets broken. Using two of the most powerful sources of X-ray flashes in the world, the X-ray laser SwissFEL and the X-ray synchrotron Swiss Light Source, the reaction could be followed all the way from the beginning to the end.
To interpret the complex experimental data, theoreticians from Uppsala University and Stockholm University teamed up and performed advanced quantum-chemical calculations.
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