Researchers at Binghamton University led research partnering with the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN)—a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory—to get a better look at how peroxides on the surface of copper oxide promote the oxidation of hydrogen but inhibit the oxidation of carbon monoxide, allowing them to steer oxidation reactions. They were able to observe these quick changes with two complimentary spectroscopy methods that have not been used in this way. The results of this work have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
