The chemical reaction of an atom or molecule is likened to the movement of energy on a contour map called potential.In other words, the chemical reaction starts at the energetically stable foot, crosses the pass, and moves to another foot.For example, in the reaction in which electrons move away from the hydrogen atom investigated this time, when energy is given to the atom to bring it to a high-energy state, the electrons move away from the nucleus.At this time, at first, ascending the slope of the potential and crossing the pass, the electrons are completely separated.As a result of theoretical analysis of this phenomenon, it was discovered that various branched routes appear when approaching the vicinity of the pass.It was also found that this path is related to the direction of the magnetism applied from the surroundings.In other words, the direction in which electrons move away from the nucleus can be freely controlled by manipulating magnetism.

　Although it has not been verified by experiments yet, we are planning to conduct experiments to verify the validity of this theory in the future.Although the subject of this analysis was an extremely simple reaction, it is theoretically universally valid, and it is expected that bifurcation can be switched even for more complicated chemical reaction pathways.In mass production such as pharmaceuticals, it is a problem that by-products are generated in addition to the target substance, but if it becomes possible to control chemical reactions in the future, it will be possible to produce only the target substance. maybe.

Source:[Hokkaido University] Elucidation of the existence of a "changeover switch" that converts the destination of a chemical reaction