Rust Never Sleeps: Observations of Electron Hopping in Iron Oxide Hold Consequences for Environment and Energy

Rust -- iron oxide -- is a poor conductor of electricity, which is why an electronic device with a rusted battery usually won't work. Despite this poor conductivity, an electron transferred to a particle of rust will use thermal energy to continually move or "hop" from one atom of iron to the next. Electron mobility in iron oxide can hold huge significance for a broad range of environment- and energy-related reactions, including reactions pertaining to uranium in groundwater and reactions pertaining to low-cost solar energy devices. Predicting the impact of electron-hopping on iron oxide reactions has been problematic in the past, but now, for the first time, a multi-institutional team of researchers, led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has directly observed what happens to electrons after they have been transferred to an iron oxide particle.