Researchers claim a newly discovered molecule found in the Earth’s atmosphere holds the potential to help offset global warming by actually cooling the planet. The molecule is a Criegee biradical or Criegee intermediate, which are chemical intermediaries that are powerful oxidizers of pollutants produced by combustion, such as nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide. They have the ability to naturally clean up the atmosphere by helping break down nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide to form sulfate and nitrate, which ultimately leads to cloud formation that could help cool the planet.

Criegee biradicals are carbonyl oxides that were first hypothesized in the 1950s by Rudolf Criegee but had not been able to be directly detected until now. Using a unique apparatus designed by Sandia Lab researchers, researchers from the University of Manchester, Bristol University and Sandia Labs were able to detect the Criegee biradical – in this case formaldehyde oxide (CH2OO) – and measure how fast it reacts.

The apparatus used the intense, tunable light from a third-generation synchrotron facility at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Advanced Light Source to discern the formation and removal of different isomeric species, which are molecules that contain the same toms but arranged in different combinations.

The researchers found […]