Zare and co-workers have recently claimed that hydrogen peroxide is spontaneously generated on the air-water interface of sprayed microdroplets, i.e., that H2O2 forms without an external energy source or co-reactant or catalyst. Specifically, they find that the H2O2(aq) concentration in sprayed microdroplets increases by a factor of 3.5 (or 2.5) as the spray chamber's relative humidity (RH) is changed from 15% to 50% (or from 15% to 95%). Building on these results, they imply causation for the seasonality of viral infections arising from the RH-dependent H2O2 generation in environmental microdroplets. Here, we present an alternative explanation for their observations.
@article{arxiv.2405.10971,
title = {Hydrogen peroxide forms spontaneously in water (bulk, film, or microdroplet) via reduction of dissolved oxygen at solid-water interface},
author = {Muzzamil Ahmad Eatoo and Himanshu Mishra},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.10971},
year = {2024}
}