"We've found a hole in the nitrogen cycle pipeline. As there is nitrous oxide escaping out of the soil into the atmosphere, we now know where the holes are," said co-author Jonathan Caranto, postdoctoral researcher in chemistry.
Cornell University chemists have uncovered a fresh role for nitric oxide that could send biochemical textbooks back for revision.
They have identified a critical step in the nitrification process, which is partly responsible for agricultural emissions of harmful nitrous oxide and its chemical cousins into the atmosphere, contributing to global climate change.
Current biochemical models hold that inorganic hydroxylamine is the only intermediary formed when bacteria convert ammonia - used in commercial agricultural fertilizer - into dormant nitrite. In this new study, the chemists found that hydroxylamine is converted into another intermediary - nitric oxide - which under normal soil conditions acts as the chemical prelude to nitrite. But under imperfect soil conditions, nitric oxide is converted into the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. The work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, July 17.
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