In metal processing, a reducing atmosphere is used in annealing ovens for relaxation of metal stresses without corroding the metal. A non-oxidizing gas, usually nitrogen or argon, is typically used as a carrier gas so that diluted amounts of reducing gases may be used. Typically, this is achieved through using the combustion products of fuels and tailoring the ratio of CO:CO2. However, other common reducing atmospheres in the metal processing industries consist of dissociated ammonia, vacuum, and/or direct mixing of appropriately pure gases of N2, Ar, and H2. [2]
A reducing atmosphere is also used to produce specific effects on ceramic wares being fired. A reduction atmosphere is produced in a fuel fired kiln by reducing the draft and depriving the kiln of oxygen. This diminished level of oxygen causes incomplete combustion of the fuel and raises the level of carbon inside the kiln. At high temperatures the carbon will bond with and remove the oxygen in the metal oxides used as colorants in the glazes. This loss of oxygen results in a change in the color of the glazes because it allows the metals in the glaze to be seen in an unoxidized form. A reduction atmosphere can also affect the color of the clay body. If iron is present in the clay body, as it is in most stoneware, then it will be affected by the reduction atmosphere as well.
In most commercial incinerators, exactly the same conditions are created to encourage the release of carbon bearing fumes. These fumes are then oxidized in reburn tunnels where oxygen is injected progressively. The exothermic oxidation reaction maintains the temperature of the reburn tunnels. This system allows lower temperatures to be employed in the incinerator section, where the solids are volumetrically reduced.
Origin of life
The atmosphere of Early Earth is widely speculated to have been reducing. The Miller–Urey experiment, related to some hypotheses for the origin of life, entailed reactions in a reducing atmosphere composed of a mixed atmosphere of methane, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. [3] [4] Some hypotheses for the origin of life invoke a reducing atmosphere consisting of hydrogen cyanide (HCN). Experiments show that HCN can polymerize in the presence of ammonia to give a variety of products including amino acids. [5] The same principle applies to Mars, Venus and Titan.
Cyanobacteria are suspected to be the first photoautotrophs that evolved oxygenic photosynthesis, which over the latter half of the Archaen eon eventually depleted all reductants in the Earth's oceans, terrestrial surface and atmsophere, gradually increasing the oxygen concentration in the atmosphere, changing it to what is known as an oxidizing atmosphere. This rising oxygen initially led to a 300 million-year-long ice age that devastated the then-mostly anaerobe-dominated biosphere, forcing the surviving anaerobic colonies to evolve into symbiotic microbial mats with the newly evolved aerobes. Some aerobic bacteria eventually became endosymbiont within other anaerobes (likely archaea), and the resultant symbiogenesis led to the evolution of a completely new lineage of life — the eukaryotes, who took advantage of mitochondrial aerobic respiration to power their cellular activities, allowing life to thrive and evolve into ever more complex forms. [6] The increased oxygen in the atmosphere also eventually created the ozone layer, which shielded away harmful ionizing ultraviolet radiation that otherwise would have photodissociated away surface water and rendered life impossible on land and the ocean surface.
In contrast to the hypothesized early reducing atmosphere, evidence exists that Hadean atmospheric oxygen levels were similar to those of today. [7] These results suggests prebiotic building blocks were delivered from elsewhere in the galaxy. The results however do not run contrary to existing theories on life's journey from anaerobic to aerobic organisms. The results quantify the nature of gas molecules containing carbon, hydrogen, and sulphur in the earliest atmosphere, but they shed no light on the much later rise of free oxygen in the air. [8]
Combustion, or burning, is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction between a fuel and an oxidant, usually atmospheric oxygen, that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke. Combustion does not always result in fire, because a flame is only visible when substances undergoing combustion vaporize, but when it does, a flame is a characteristic indicator of the reaction. While activation energy must be supplied to initiate combustion, the heat from a flame may provide enough energy to make the reaction self-sustaining.
The Haber process, also called the Haber–Bosch process, is the main industrial procedure for the production of ammonia. The German chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch developed it in the first decade of the 20th century. The process converts atmospheric nitrogen (N2) to ammonia (NH3) by a reaction with hydrogen (H2) using an iron metal catalyst under high temperatures and pressures. This reaction is slightly exothermic (i.e. it releases energy), meaning that the reaction is favoured at lower temperatures and higher pressures. It decreases entropy, complicating the process. Hydrogen is produced via steam reforming, followed by an iterative closed cycle to react hydrogen with nitrogen to produce ammonia.
The Miller–Urey experiment (or Miller experiment) was an experiment in chemical synthesis carried out in 1952 that simulated the conditions thought at the time to be present in the atmosphere of the early, prebiotic Earth. It is seen as one of the first successful experiments demonstrating the synthesis of organic compounds from inorganic constituents in an origin of life scenario. The experiment used methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), hydrogen (H2), in ratio 2:2:1, and water (H2O). Applying an electric arc (the latter simulating lightning) resulted in the production of amino acids.
Raku ware is a type of Japanese pottery traditionally used in Japanese tea ceremonies, most often in the form of chawan tea bowls. It is traditionally characterised by being hand-shaped rather than thrown, fairly porous vessels, which result from low firing temperatures, lead glazes and the removal of pieces from the kiln while still glowing hot. In the traditional Japanese process, the fired raku piece is removed from the hot kiln and is allowed to cool in the open air.
In chemistry and manufacturing, electrolysis is a technique that uses direct electric current (DC) to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction. Electrolysis is commercially important as a stage in the separation of elements from naturally occurring sources such as ores using an electrolytic cell. The voltage that is needed for electrolysis to occur is called the decomposition potential. The word "lysis" means to separate or break, so in terms, electrolysis would mean "breakdown via electricity".
Redox is a type of chemical reaction in which the oxidation states of a reactant change. Oxidation is the loss of electrons or an increase in the oxidation state, while reduction is the gain of electrons or a decrease in the oxidation state.
In chemistry, a reducing agent is a chemical species that "donates" an electron to an electron recipient . Examples of substances that are common reducing agents include hydrogen, the alkali metals, formic acid, oxalic acid, and sulfite compounds.
Anaerobic respiration is respiration using electron acceptors other than molecular oxygen (O2). Although oxygen is not the final electron acceptor, the process still uses a respiratory electron transport chain.
The Sabatier reaction or Sabatier process produces methane and water from a reaction of hydrogen with carbon dioxide at elevated temperatures and pressures in the presence of a nickel catalyst. It was discovered by the French chemists Paul Sabatier and Jean-Baptiste Senderens in 1897. Optionally, ruthenium on alumina makes a more efficient catalyst. It is described by the following exothermic reaction:
Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) means of converting nitrogen oxides, also referred to as NO
x with the aid of a catalyst into diatomic nitrogen, and water. A reductant, typically anhydrous ammonia, aqueous ammonia, or a urea solution, is added to a stream of flue or exhaust gas and is reacted onto a catalyst. As the reaction drives toward completion, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide, in the case of urea use, are produced.
The important sulfur cycle is a biogeochemical cycle in which the sulfur moves between rocks, waterways and living systems. It is important in geology as it affects many minerals and in life because sulfur is an essential element (CHNOPS), being a constituent of many proteins and cofactors, and sulfur compounds can be used as oxidants or reductants in microbial respiration. The global sulfur cycle involves the transformations of sulfur species through different oxidation states, which play an important role in both geological and biological processes. Steps of the sulfur cycle are:
The hydrogen cycle consists of hydrogen exchanges between biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) sources and sinks of hydrogen-containing compounds.
The Huronian glaciation was a period where at least three ice ages occurred during the deposition of Huronian Supergroup. Deposition of this largely sedimentary succession extended from approximately 2.5 to 2.2 billion years ago (Gya), during the Siderian and Rhyacian periods of the Paleoproterozoic era. Evidence for glaciation is mainly based on the recognition of diamictite, that is interpreted to be of glacial origin. Deposition of the Huronian succession is interpreted to have occurred within a rift basin that evolved into a largely marine passive margin setting. The glacial diamictite deposits within the Huronian are on par in thickness with Quaternary analogs.
The Great Oxidation Event (GOE) or Great Oxygenation Event, also called the Oxygen Catastrophe, Oxygen Revolution, Oxygen Crisis or Oxygen Holocaust, was a time interval during the Early Earth's Paleoproterozoic era when the Earth's atmosphere and the shallow ocean first experienced a rise in the concentration of oxygen. This began approximately 2.460–2.426 Ga (billion years) ago during the Siderian period and ended approximately 2.060 Ga ago during the Rhyacian. Geological, isotopic, and chemical evidence suggests that biologically produced molecular oxygen (dioxygen or O2) started to accumulate in Earth's atmosphere and changed it from a weakly reducing atmosphere practically devoid of oxygen into an oxidizing one containing abundant free oxygen, with oxygen levels being as high as 10% of their present atmospheric level by the end of the GOE.
Lithotrophs are a diverse group of organisms using an inorganic substrate to obtain reducing equivalents for use in biosynthesis or energy conservation via aerobic or anaerobic respiration. While lithotrophs in the broader sense include photolithotrophs like plants, chemolithotrophs are exclusively microorganisms; no known macrofauna possesses the ability to use inorganic compounds as electron sources. Macrofauna and lithotrophs can form symbiotic relationships, in which case the lithotrophs are called "prokaryotic symbionts". An example of this is chemolithotrophic bacteria in giant tube worms or plastids, which are organelles within plant cells that may have evolved from photolithotrophic cyanobacteria-like organisms. Chemolithotrophs belong to the domains Bacteria and Archaea. The term "lithotroph" was created from the Greek terms 'lithos' (rock) and 'troph' (consumer), meaning "eaters of rock". Many but not all lithoautotrophs are extremophiles.
An Ellingham diagram is a graph showing the temperature dependence of the stability of compounds. This analysis is usually used to evaluate the ease of reduction of metal oxides and sulfides. These diagrams were first constructed by Harold Ellingham in 1944. In metallurgy, the Ellingham diagram is used to predict the equilibrium temperature between a metal, its oxide, and oxygen — and by extension, reactions of a metal with sulfur, nitrogen, and other non-metals. The diagrams are useful in predicting the conditions under which an ore will be reduced to its metal. The analysis is thermodynamic in nature and ignores reaction kinetics. Thus, processes that are predicted to be favourable by the Ellingham diagram can still be slow.
Microbial metabolism is the means by which a microbe obtains the energy and nutrients it needs to live and reproduce. Microbes use many different types of metabolic strategies and species can often be differentiated from each other based on metabolic characteristics. The specific metabolic properties of a microbe are the major factors in determining that microbe's ecological niche, and often allow for that microbe to be useful in industrial processes or responsible for biogeochemical cycles.
PROX is an acronym for PReferential OXidation, that refers to the preferential oxidation of carbon monoxide in a gas mixture by a catalyst. It is intended to remove trace amounts of CO from H2/CO/CO2 mixtures produced by steam reforming and water-gas shift. An ideal PROX catalyst preferentially oxidizes carbon monoxide (CO) using a heterogeneous catalyst placed upon a ceramic support. Catalysts include metals such as platinum, platinum/iron, platinum/ruthenium, gold nanoparticles as well as novel copper oxide/ceramic conglomerate catalysts.
Evolution of metal ions in biological systems refers to the incorporation of metallic ions into living organisms and how it has changed over time. Metal ions have been associated with biological systems for billions of years, but only in the last century have scientists began to truly appreciate the scale of their influence. Major and minor metal ions have become aligned with living organisms through the interplay of biogeochemical weathering and metabolic pathways involving the products of that weathering. The associated complexes have evolved over time.
The prebiotic atmosphere is the second atmosphere present on Earth before today's biotic, oxygen-rich third atmosphere, and after the first atmosphere of Earth's formation. The formation of the Earth, roughly 4.5 billion years ago, involved multiple collisions and coalescence of planetary embryos. This was followed by a <100 million year period on Earth where a magma ocean was present, the atmosphere was mainly steam, and surface temperatures reached up to 8,000 K (14,000 °F). Earth's surface then cooled and the atmosphere stabilized, establishing the prebiotic atmosphere. The environmental conditions during this time period were quite different from today: the Sun was ~30% dimmer overall yet brighter at ultraviolet and x-ray wavelengths, there was a liquid ocean, it is unknown if there were continents but oceanic islands were likely, Earth's interior chemistry was different, and there was a larger flux of impactors hitting Earth's surface.
