Each lung of air we suck is made up mainly of nitrogen, with a generous supply of oxygen and some carbon dioxide.
But dusting this atmospheric soup is a whole encyclopedia of different compounds and elements, some of which we can only speculate.
However, one of these mysteries has just come to light. Chemists have shown that there is a reactive class of compounds called organic hydrotrioxides in the atmosphere, and even though these chemicals last only a short time, they could have effects that we do not know.
In fact, according to the researchers’ calculations, you only inhaled a few billion molecules while reading this.
What exactly this means for your health, not to mention the health of our planet, is literally and figuratively in the air. But since we just discovered this new ingredient in the Earth’s atmosphere, it’s worth a look.
“These compounds have always existed; we just didn’t know them,” says chemist Henrik Grum Kjærgaard of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
“But the fact that we now have evidence that compounds are formed and live for a certain period of time means that it is possible to study their effect … and answer whether they are dangerous.”
Very often in chemistry, the addition of a single new component can radically change the behavior of a material.
Take water, for example. Thanks to the way their hydrogen and oxygen pair interact, organic chemistry can mix and rotate into an evolving phenomenon we call life.
However, we add only one more oxygen and we get hydrogen peroxide, a much more reactive compound that can break down living chemistry.
Stick more oxygen to this angry little molecule and the result is hydrotrioxide. To do this, all you need is the right kind of lab equipment, some saturated organic compounds, and some dry ice.
It’s not exactly the kind of party trick you’d use to spice up a daisy, but chemists have used its manufacture to generate a specific flavor of molecular oxygen as a way to produce other substances.
Being highly reactive, there has been an open question about whether hydrotoxides can easily form stable structures in the atmosphere.
Nor is it just an academic point of speculation. Much of the way our atmosphere works, from the intricate ways it influences personal health to the massive scale of the global climate, arises from the way trace materials interact.
“Most human activity leads to the emission of chemicals into the atmosphere. Therefore, knowledge of the reactions that determine atmospheric chemistry is important if we want to predict how our actions will affect the atmosphere in the future. “says Kristan H. Møller, also a chemist at the University of Copenhagen.
The team’s research now provides the first direct observations of the formation of hydrotrioxide under atmospheric conditions from various substances known to be present in our air.
This allowed them to study how the compound is likely to be synthesized, how long it stays, and how it degrades.
One such emission, called isoprene, can react in the atmosphere to generate about 10 million metric tons of hydrotrioxide each year.
This is just a potential source, though. According to the team’s calculations, almost any compound could, in theory, play a role in the atmospheric formation of hydrotrioxides, which remain intact for a few minutes to a few hours.
At this time, they may be involved in a host of other reactions as a powerful oxidant, some of which could be protected within wind-drift microscopic solids.
“It’s easy to imagine that new substances are being formed in aerosols that are harmful if inhaled. But more research is needed to address these possible health effects,” says Kjærgaard.
Since aerosols also affect the way our planet reflects sunlight, knowing how their internal chemistry makes them grow or degrade could change the way we shape our climate.
Undoubtedly, more research will begin to find out the role of hydrotrioxides in the atmospheric cocktail of our planet. As Copenhagen University researcher Jing Chen points out, this is really just the beginning.
“In fact, the air around us is a huge envelope of complex chemical reactions,” Chen says.
“As researchers, we need to keep an open mind if we want to improve when it comes to finding solutions.”
This research is published in Science.