Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) and the University of Hawaii have uncovered the first step in the process that transforms gas-phase molecules into solid particles like soot and other carbon-based compounds. This is a graphical representation of the chemistry in the early stages of soot formation. The mechanism to the right was demonstrated by experiment, while the one on the left was not. Credit: Dorian Parker, University of Hawaii The finding could help combustion chemists make more-efficient, less-polluting fuels and help materials scientists fine-tune their carbon nanotubes and graphene sheets for faster, smaller electronics. In addition, the results could have implications for the burgeoning field of astrochemistry, potentially establishing the chemical process for how gaseous outflows from stars turn into carbon-based matter in space. “When you burn a flame, you start with a gas-phase reactant and then analyze the products, which include soot,” says Musahid Ahmed, scientist in the Chemical Sciences Division at Berkeley Lab. “But there is no direct evidence for the chemical bonds that break and form in the process.” For more than 30 years, scientists have developed computational models of combustion to explain how gas molecules form soot, but now Ahmed and
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