Chemistry. Enhanced: a view of unusual peroxides.

Chemical processes involving oxygen can lead to unstable peroxide molecules such as three-membered ring dioxiranes. In his Perspective, Greer describes the stability of a variety of heteroatom-containing dioxiranes and the tools used to characterize unstable peroxides species. He highlights the report by Ho et al., who have used low-temperature nuclear magnetic resonance to obtain direct evidence for dioxirane intermediates. The method may also be applicable to biological systems in which peroxides have been implicated.