Scholarship and Biography
We study complex organic materials by advanced solid-state NMR and chemical energy by quantitative thermodynamic analysis. Most importantly, we have developed the oxygen theory of combustion and respiration energetics, which shows quantitatively that O2 is a high-energy molecule. This means that our bodies get most of their energy not from the food we eat but from the oxygen we breathe.
We characterize the composition and nanoscale structure of complex organic materials, in particular polymers, carbon materials, metal–organic frameworks, nanocomposites, and natural organic matter, using quantitative or selective one- and two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments, often developed by us. We have also introduced methods for quantitative analysis of scattering data of nanostructured materials. This dual approach has enabled us to “solve” important aspects of the structure of the Nafion fuel-cell membrane, of the nanocomposite in bone, and of chain trajectories in semicrystalline polymers. Based on such structural insights, we strive to understand materials properties and sometimes propose improved synthesis or processing conditions.
In the area of chemical energy, we have worked out quantitatively how batteries store energy in weak bonds of certain metals and release it when more strongly bonded metals form, and that fire is hot due to chemical energy stored in oxygen molecules with their relatively weak double bond, regardless of the organic fuel. This has revealed fundamental misconceptions in traditional descriptions of bioenergetics, which fail to explain the energetics of respiration and fermentation of carbohydrates and fats, of the two photosystems in plants, and of bioluminescence. High-energy O2 immediately provides the needed explanations.