Carbonic acid, the hydrated form of carbon dioxide, is one of the most omnipresent molecules on earth. Carbonic acid (H2CO3), however, has hitherto only been measured in isolation in the gas phase and frozen in ice matrices. Adamczyk et al. describe in a publication in Science Express (November 12, 2009) how carbonic acid can be transiently generated with photoacids and detected with ultrafast vibrational spectroscopy.
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