Electrically neutral radical: A strong chemical reducing agent when exposed to light
(PHYSorg.com Chemistry)

A combined team of researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Kent State University has discovered an electrically neutral radical that can be used as a strong chemical reducing agent when excited by light. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes their process and possible uses for it. Radek Cibulka with the University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague, has published a News & Views piece describing the ways that light energy can be used to generate reactive molecules that undergo chemical transformations via methods that would ordinarily be difficult to achieve-and the work by the researchers in this new effort-in the same journal issue.