Controlling how oxygen reacts is important for improving technologies such as batteries, fuel cells and environmentally sustainable chemical processes. A research team led by professor Seung Jun Hwang from KAIST’s Department of Chemistry has developed a molecular system capable of directing oxygen activation along a selected electron-transfer pathway.

By combining germanium with a molecular framework that can store and transfer electrons, the team established a design principle for selectively switching oxygen activation between two-and four-electron pathways. The results were published in Chem.