#hydroxymethylene

A team led by University of Maryland chemists discovered a new way to create carbenes, a class of highly reactive yet notoriously short-lived and unstable molecules. Involved in many high-energy chemical reactions such as the creation of carbohydrates, carbenes are crucial precursors to the building blocks of life on Earth—and possibly in space. The scientists successfully formed a carbene called hydroxymethylene (HCOH) by breaking down methanol (a common alcohol found in many industrial chemicals like formaldehyde) with pulses of ultraviolet radiation. The results were published in a paper on May 14, 2024, in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. "It's surprising to see this carbene come from such a commonplace molecule like methanol—we have squirt bottles of it in labs everywhere," said Leah Dodson, an assistant professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UMD and senior author of the paper.