Fig. 1. General reaction mechanisms of peroxy radicals, RO₂, from alkane oxidation at combustion-relevant (T > 500 K, red region) and atmospheric (T ≈ 300 K, blue region) conditions.

The figure focuses on possible radical propagation pathways, omitting termination reactions. For linear alkanes, n-decane is used to illustrate some hypothetical example structures. Gray colors depict previously reported radical reactions and intermediates^6,18, while the black summarize the results of this study, showing highly oxygenated compounds identified for the first time. The vertical grids separate molecules with different O-atom content. The notations “RO_X>2” refer to peroxy radicals with a total of X O-atoms.