Chinese scientists have thrown a curveball at traditional chemistry, unlocking the secrets of "roaming reactions" in highly excited energy states. Their findings, published in Science on Thursday, challenge the long-held assumption that chemical reactions always seek the quickest, lowest-energy path.

This breakthrough, achieved by chemists at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, expands our understanding of chemical behavior and potentially explains previously puzzling phenomena.

The concept of roaming reactions first emerged in 2004, challenging the "minimum energy path" principle, which dictates reactions follow the path requiring the least energy. Scientists observed some reactions defying this "shortcut," venturing off the ideal path. However, until now, such "roaming" had only been witnessed in ground and first excited states, never in highly energized molecules.

"This work confirms that roaming should be expected as a common phenomenon in highly excited states," commented Science editor Yury Suleymanov in a summary of the paper.

"It turns out that roaming is a general aspect of chemical reactivity that we simply hadn't noticed before," remarked Fu Bina, a corresponding author from DICP.

This discovery was made possible, in part, by the Dalian Coherent Light Source, a major national scientific instrument completed in 2016 and located in northeast China's Liaoning Province.