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Scientists in Australia are closer to harvesting hydrogen from two of the most abundant and naturally occurring resources in our environment – seawater and sunlight.

Water oxidation, the first part of the water splitting reaction that can produce hydrogen, is difficult as it is so kinetically unfavourable. Using photocatalysts to overcome this energy barrier is appealing as sunlight can supply the required energy rather than needing electrical or thermal energy.

Unlike some photocatalytic water oxidation methods that use catalysts mounted on a semiconductor to form an electrode, a team, led by Jun Chen and Gerhard Swiegers, from the University of Wollongong, Australia, have shown that…

Continue reading the full article in Chemistry World »

Read the original journal article in Chemical Science:
A light-assisted, polymeric water oxidation catalyst that selectively oxidizes seawater with a low onset potential
Jun Chen, Pawel Wagner, Lei Tong, Danijel Boskovic, Weimin Zhang, David Officer, Gordon G. Wallace and Gerhard F. Swiegers  
Chem. Sci., 2013, 4, 2797-2803
DOI: 10.1039/C3SC50812A

Scientists in the US have made two fluorescent probes that can distinguish persulfides and polysulfides from hydrogen sulfide. This work paves the way for developing non-destructive probes for sulfane sulfurs that can be used in living cells and even in vivo.

Fluorescence image of a polysulfide in H9c2 cells

Sulfane sulfurs – which feature divalent sulfur atoms bonded to other sulfur – appear in a number of biologically important compounds. They include thiocysteine and thiocystine, two products of cysteine metabolism which are found at higher than normal concentrations in cancer cells. Until now, the only selective methods for detecting sulfane sulfurs were destructive and could therefore not be used for real-time imaging.

Now, Ming Xian and colleagues at Washington State University have designed a probe for sulfane sulfurs and tested it on living cells.

Continue reading the full article in Chemistry World »

Read the original journal article in Chemical Science:
New fluorescent probes for sulfane sulfurs and the application in bioimaging
Wei Chen, Chunrong Liu, Bo Peng, Yu Zhao, Armando Pacheco and Ming Xian  
Chem. Sci., 2013, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C3SC50754H, Edge Article