Oxygen takes elitist attitude to sharing electrons

Fuel cells, metal-air batteries, and other devices use electron-exchanging reactions involving gaseous oxygen. To improve these technologies, scientists need to know how the oxygen behaves when it encounters the catalyst, a material that enables the overall reaction. Researchers in California just overturned the conventional thinking about the oxygen's behavior; they showed that the oxygen doesn't exchange electrons with iron and similar metals as once thought. Instead, electron-rich oxygen ions