Excess nitrates in water, caused by fertilisers and waste effluents from certain industries, can cause serious human health problems such as cancer and the blue-baby disease.
The removal of these pollutants from water can be done by using bimetallic catalytic systems.
The thorough understanding of how these catalytic systems work is pivotal for the development of effective denitration processes.

In this Hot Paper, Atsushi Urakawa together with an international team of scientists, uses in situ high-energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD) X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) to monitor the oxidation state of the copper phase of bimetallic catalysts used in the removal of nitrates from water.

If you want to follow the redox cycle of copper in this reaction download this Hot Article.