The international team of scientists from the University of Colorado and the Helsinki opened a new amazing chemical compound, part of the Earth's atmosphere. It is able to chemically react with sulfur dioxide to form sulfuric acid, which is known to have a significant effect on climate and human health, according to the website ScienceDaily.
This compound is a representative of the carbonyl group. It is formed by the interaction of ozone contained in the atmosphere, with alkenes (unsaturated hydrocarbons), which can be both natural and artificial nature. Thus, he found a new pathway for the formation of sulfuric acid, whose influence on the atmosphere of a very, very negative: it is acid rain and pollution of air inhaled by man. Acid rain in turn detrimental to the earth's flora and fauna.
Says Roy "Lee" Mauldin III (Roy «Lee» Mauldin II), University of Colorado researcher and lead author of the study: "Usually, the formation of sulfuric acid in the atmosphere is by reaction of sulfur dioxide and the hydroxyl radical OH, which consists of hydrogen and oxygen atoms with unpaired electrons, making them a high level. A catalyst for the chemical reaction of sulfuric acid is sunlight, which acts like a match, starting the process. " First suspicions on another method of formation of sulfuric acid, the scientists were born, when they began to discover in the atmosphere sulfuric acid at night, that is, in the absence of sunlight. According to Mauldin, they became massively identify sulfuric acid in the forests of Finland (where much of the research was conducted), which could not but encourage scientists to the question: where does it come from?
Scientists literally closed in the laboratory and were combined in a mass spectrometer (gas analyzer) ozone with sulfur dioxide and various alkenes. At some stage, the mass spectrometer recorded the formation of large amounts of sulfuric acid. Because the researchers wanted to make sure that the hydroxyl radical is not involved in the formation of sulfuric acid, they added to the analyzer special substance to completely bind and remove even traces of it from there. Later, one of the scientists decided to experiment: he held over the tube of the mass spectrometer has just broken branch of pine. As you know, in a pine tree contains isoprene and alfapinen - alkenes, giving it a distinctive pine scent. Then the concentration of sulfuric acid went up sharply. As then recognized scientists, they have never seen anything like it, as, in fact, no one else.
According to Mauldin, this newly discovered pathway for the formation of sulfuric acid will be of scientific interest to researchers of climate change: given the ever-increasing amount of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere, a new discovery will affect the atmospheric sulfur cycle.
According to the Office for the Environment (USA) about 90% of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere - a consequence of emission combustion of fossil fuels in power plants and other industrial facilities. Other sources of sulfur - even volcanoes and oceanic phytoplankton.
Airborne particles of sulfuric acid, which can be of different sizes, play a major role in the formation of clouds, which have a cooling effect on the atmosphere. Smaller particles, which are closer to the surface of the Earth, can cause respiratory problems in humans.
Over the last century the climate south-eastern United States was slightly colder. Mauldin relates this fact is a newly discovered chemical - natural oxidant. According to him, the particles of sulfuric acid over the pine forests constitute more clouds, which reflect sunlight back into space, cooling the thus located beneath the region.
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