Sulfur disproportionation is exergonic in the vicinity of marine hydrothermal vents

by Elio
 

Figure 1. Hydrothermal vent. Source.

Now that’s a title of a paper for you. I confess, it baf­fled me. At a min­imum, I had to look up dis­prop­or­tion­ation. What is it? Also known as dis­mut­ation, this refers to a redox reac­tion in which a com­pound that is partly oxi­dized con­verts to two com­pounds, one of higher and one of lower oxi­dation state. In the sul­fur busi­ness, com­pounds be­come simul­tane­ously red­uced and oxi­dized to sul­fide and sul­fite. Dis­prop­ortion­able (a term I just coined) sulfur com­pounds are abun­dant in the ocean and esp­ecially near hydro­thermal vents. So are the bac­teria that can carry out these reac­tions. Some 30 species that can do this are known and they use a var­iety of en­zymes in these pro­cesses. The impor­tance of these in their environ­ment rem­ains to be deter­mined, but they are likely to be quite rel­evant to the com­plex sulfur cycles in the oceans.
 

Now for the rest of the title. Exer­gonic, as you likely know, means that a pro­cess is accom­panied by the rel­ease of energy. The title is now cry­stal clear, no?