Water has been studied for years and years, but still, scientists are discovering new abilities. Just recently, scientists from Stanford University discovered that under certain circumstances, water can spontaneously produce hydrogen peroxide.
"Water is one of the most commonly found materials, and it's been studied for years and years and you would think that there was nothing more to learn about this molecule. But here's yet another surprise," said Richard Zare, who is also a member of Stanford Bio-X.
This is a major discovery, as it could potentially lead to a new, greener way of producing hydrogen peroxide-which is used in bleach and other disinfectants.
"We suggest that this discovery opens various innovative opportunities including green and inexpensive production of hydrogen peroxide, green chemical synthesis, safe cleaning, and food processing," the researchers wrote in their paper.
The scientists, however, sort of just stumbled upon this phenomenon while conducting lab tests to investigate the creation of gold nanoparticles and nanowires using water droplets and a reducing agent. During the experiment, Zare's team discovered that not only do microdroplets accelerate the creation of gold nanoparticles, but actually creates them.
The team then decided to run a control test, at which point Zare suggested attempting to create the nanostructures without the use of a reducing agent. Most would consider this to be impossible, as theoretically it should not work-but it did work. This strange occurrence led the team to believe that a potential new discovery in microdroplet chemistry may be on the horizon.
Zare and his team found that those results were essentially the byproduct of a molecule called hydroxl. That prompted Katherine Walker, who was a graduate student in Zare's lab at the time, to wonder if hydrogen peroxide was present as well.
To explore further, and eventually confirm her theory, Zare, Walker and the rest of the team decided to conduct several tests that consisted of spraying microdroplets of water onto a strip, that if hydrogen peroxide was present, would turn blue-and blue it did turn, as demonstrated in the following video.
One other amazing feature of the experiment is that the production of hydrogen peroxide through these microdroplets is directly associated to the size of the droplets. The smaller the droplets, the more hydrogen peroxide that is produced.
Richard Zare is an accomplished chemist with nearly a dozen awards to his credit, but even he is thrilled by his team's discovery.
"I think it could be one of the most important things I've ever done," he says.
The findings can be found in PNAS.
