Scientist resolves one of the holy grails of physical chemistry after 17 years of research

Professor Ehud Pines is an iconoclast. A scientist who spent 17 years pursuing the solution to an over 200 year old chemistry problem and never received a satisfying answer using methods no other scientist thought could lead to the truth is called a scientist. He was vindicated as Angewandte Chemie published a cover article detailing how his experiment was replicated by another research group while being X-rayed.

There is a question about how a protons moves through water. The Grotthuss Mechanism was proposed by Theodor Grotthuss in the 18th century. The standard text-book answer remained despite many attempts to update it. It has been this way until now.

The theoretical studies by Prof. Benjamin Fingerhut on the structure of Prof. Pines' water clusters suggest that the protons move.

The trains build the tracks underneath them and then disassemble them and rebuild them in front of them. It's a loop of tracks that disappear and reappear. Similar ideas were put forward by a number of scientists in the past but they were not assigned to the correct structure of the hydrated protons.

One of the most basic challenges in chemistry is the debate on the Grotthuss mechanism. Understanding this mechanism is pure science, changing one of our fundamental understandings of one of Nature's most important mass and charge transport mechanisms.

Most of the global scientific community was reluctant to accept Prof. Pines' model for solvation and movement in water. The Max Born Institute in Germany has been collaborating with Prof. Pines for a long time.

An international research team was put together by Dr. Nibbering to replicate an experiment that X-rayed the chemical system. The X-ray experiment was funded by the European Research Council.

The X-ray absorption experiment measured the structure of the inner electrons of the water's single oxygen atoms. Prof. Pines predicted that the three water molecules were most affected by the presence of the protons, each to a different degree.

Everyone thought about the problem for over 200 years, so I decided to take it up. Prof. Pines says he is pleased that most likely have found and demonstrated the solution.

More information: Maria Ekimova et al, From Local Covalent Bonding to Extended Electric Field Interactions in Proton Hydration, Angewandte Chemie International Edition (2022). DOI: 10.1002/anie.202211066