Abstract
Electrolysis is potentially a valuable tool for cleansing waste water. One might even hope that it is possible to synthesize valuable products in this way. The question is how the reaction conditions can be chosen to obtain desired compounds. In the present study we use Car–Parrinello molecular dynamics to simulate the reaction of nucleobases under electrolytic conditions. We use our own scheme (F. Hofbauer, I. Frank, Chem. Eur. J., 18, 277, 2012) for simulating the conditions after the electron transfer in a self-consistent field calculation. This scheme was employed previously to the electrolysis of pure water and of polluted solutions. On the picosecond timescale, we find a strongly different reaction behavior for each of the four nucleobases contained in DNA.
Highlights
IntroductionHaving clean toilets is not possible without clean water
Two billion people have no access to clean toilets
It is even possible that valuable products are formed by electrolysis such as molecular hydrogen
Summary
Having clean toilets is not possible without clean water. In certain situations water is rare in contrast to electric current. This applies to arid regions on Earth and to the situation in the international space station (ISS). It is necessary to have closed circuits which involve fast and efficient cleansing of waste water. Cleansing waste water is possible by various means. Compounds like amino acids and nucleobases have a size of about 1 nm, even with nanofiltration they are not completely removed. The same is true for compounds like urea and uric acid which we investigated previously [1]. Electrolysis might help to remove such undesired compounds from a solution. It is even possible that valuable products are formed by electrolysis such as molecular hydrogen.
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