Tetroxides Directly Observed For the First Time
Tetroxides Directly Observed For the First Time
Publish Date: 2026-03-17 04:48:00
Source Domain: www.technologynetworks.com
Scientists in Sweden and the U.S. reported the first-ever direct observation a type of short‑lived molecule that has shaped decades of thinking in atmospheric chemistry, combustion research and biomedical science.
Publishing in Science Advances, researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, in Stockholm, and Kinetic Chemistry Research in Mountain View, California, say their discovery of long-theorized, oxygen-rich tetroxides has implications in a number of sciences, including atmospheric chemistry, biochemistry and medicine and combustion chemistry.
“This compound is the equivalent of the Higgs boson for oxidation chemistry,” says Barbara Nozière, professor of physical chemistry at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. “Its existence was assumed for decades but nobody had ever seen it.”
First theorized in the 1950s, tetroxides have been predicted to appear for a fleeting moment when two organic radicals react together, creating a molecule with four oxygen atoms in a row- a process called the Russell mechanism.
Although they disappear almost immediately, tetroxides play important roles in all the processes where organic compounds (or carbohydrates) are “burned” in contact with air, such as in fires, candlelight flames, car engines, but also at low temperature in Earth’s atmosphere and inside living organisms.
Evidence of their existence had to this point been indirect, contradictory or based on cold and extreme laboratory conditions. The team confirmed their presence using a unique mass‑spectrometric technique refined to detect highly unstable molecules without destroying them.
Surprisingly, they found that, in air, tetroxides are relatively stable, unlike in the conditions used in previous studies.
“The study confirms that tetroxides can exist at room temperature, in air, without needing extremely cold conditions used in earlier experiments,” Noziere says.
The revelation that they can be found outdoors and inside living…
