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December 14, 2012
MMC Professor, Dr. Alessandra Leri, makes groundbreaking discovery with Bromine
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Ground-breaking research has led to the discovery that bromine is interactive with other elements, refuting the long-held belief that halogen elements like bromine exist in nature only as inorganic salts. The study, The Chemistry of Bromine in Terrestrial and Marine Environments, was conducted by Dr. Alessandra Leri (Marymount Manhattan College Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Science) and Dr. Satish Myneni (Princeton University Associate Professor of Geosciences) and recently was highlighted by the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lab, the DOE-funded particle accelerator where Dr. Leri performed part of her research.
Prior to the work by Drs. Leri and Myneni, bromine, like other elements in the halogen (“salt-former”) family on the periodic table, was thought to be stable and unreactive in the environment. Currently, bromine is classified as a conservative element in seawater and thought to exist exclusively in the form of inorganic bromide. In terrestrial soils, bromide is believed so inert that it is routinely used as a hydrological tracer in the analysis of groundwater.
However, the studies reveal that natural organobromine is ubiquitous in soils and sediments from locations all over the globe. Reactions of organic matter with bromine on such a large scale could have far-reaching consequences for the preservation and degradation of organic carbon. The research also shows that bromine participates in complex biogeochemical reactions, cycling between organic and inorganic forms. This natural bromine cycling may have important implications for the fate of brominated environmental pollutants, including polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants.
Publications:
•Leri, A. and S. Myneni (2012). Natural organobromine in terrestrial ecosystems, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 77, 1-10.
•Leri, A., J. Hakala, M. Marcus, A. Lanzirotti, C. Reddy, and S. Myneni (2010), Natural organobromine in marine sediments: New evidence of biogeochemical Br cycling, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 24, GB4017.
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