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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1983 Jun;80(12):3873–3876. doi: 10.1073/pnas.80.12.3873

Nitrogen photoreduction on desert sands under sterile conditions

Gerhard N Schrauzer 1, Norman Strampach 1, Liu Nan Hui 1, Miles R Palmer 1, Jahanshah Salehi 1
PMCID: PMC394157  PMID: 16593330

Abstract

Sands from various geographic locations reduce N2 from the air to NH3 and traces of N2H4 on exposure to sunlight. This N2 photofixation occurs under sterile conditions on the surface of finely dispersed titanium minerals such as rutile, utilizing reducing equivalents generated through the photolysis of chemisorbed H2O. Abiological N2 photofixation is suggested to be part of the nitrogen cycle in arid and semiarid regions. It is estimated that about 10 × 105 tons of N2 is photoreduced on the total surface of the earth's deserts per year.

Keywords: physicochemical N2 fixation, photogeochemistry, titanium minerals

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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