Perspective Chapter: Beyond the Chlorophyll Molecule, Are There Other Organic Compounds Capable of Dissociating the Water Molecule? New and Unexpected Insights

Abstract

In the XVII century, researchers throughout Europe began to study the composition of the atmosphere, discerning its physicochemical properties and composition. Since then, it has been observed that the concentration of oxygen in the air around us is relatively low. Lavoisier and Priestley, in the middle of XVII century, observed that plants leaves could replenish oxygen in an impoverished atmosphere. They concluded that chlorophyll possessed the intrinsic property of dissociating the molecule from water. At the XVIII century, the systematic study of human physiology began to deepen, and it was found that the oxygen levels inside the human body were five times higher than those of the atmosphere. The explanation given was that the lung, by means of some unknown mechanism like those of the swim bladder of some fish, was able to concentrate oxygen from the atmosphere and introduce it into the bloodstream. But such a theoretical mechanism has not been found after 200 years of searching. However, there is no way to explain how the concentration of oxygen rises substantially in the tiny distance between the alveolar space and the blood capillaries of the lung. Circumstantially, we found the mechanism during an observational study about the blood vessels entering and leaving the human optic nerve: Our body has several molecules capable of dissociating the molecule from water, such as plants.