Researchers have solved a 50-year-old mystery about why organic matter in water resists degradation, finding that the oxidative dearomatization reaction transforms biomolecules into stable, diverse forms, significantly impacting global carbon cycles.
The decomposition of the leaf occurs in several phases. Insects and microorganisms begin to consume it, while sunlight and humidity affect the leaf, causing further breakdown. Eventually, the molecules from the decomposed leaf are washed into rivers, lakes, and oceans.However, at this point, the thousands of known biomolecules have been transformed into millions of very different-looking molecules with complex and typically unknown structures.
The team discovered that a specific type of reaction, known as oxidative dearomatization, is behind the mystery. Although this reaction has long been studied and applied extensively in pharmaceutical synthesis, its natural occurrence remained unexplored. “Key to the findings was the unconventional use of NMR in ways allowing studies of the deep interior of large dissolved organic molecules – thereby mapping and quantifying the chemical surroundings around the carbon atoms,” explains Siyu Li, a scientist at the Helmholtz Zentrum and lead author of the study.
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