Beginning in early 1940, Dr. Paul A. Giguere, a visiting researcher from Laval University, began a study into the properties of concentrated hydrogen peroxide at the Caltech labs. Under Pauling's watch, Giguere spent several months performing electron diffraction analyses on samples of hydrogen peroxide and hydrazine. By November, the testing had been completed and the two men wrote a brief report on their findings. Pauling, already deeply involved in the development of the oxygen meter for the NDRC, felt that his and Giguere's work might net the Institute another war research contract.

On November 14 he sent Thomas K. Sherwood, his primary NDRC contactr, an enthusiastic letter detailing his initial findings. He suggested that hydrogen peroxide might be used to absorb shock from explosives or rifle bullets. He also thought it possible to develop a means of controlling the evolution of hydrogen peroxide, suggesting that it could be used to produce oxygen for respirators. He intended, he said, to begin shock resistance tests immediately so that he might have data prepared upon Sherwood's response.

Pauling received an encouraging letter from Sherwood, but is unclear at what point further work on the hydrogen peroxide project began. Fully two months after the initial correspondence, Sherwood sent a letter to Caltech requesting a progress report from Pauling. In response, Pauling appears to have sent two letters: one detailing work on the oxygen meter and the other containing information on the hydrogen peroxide project. Unfortunately, it seems Pauling's archives are incomplete as only the first letter remains extant. Whatever information may have been included in the letter is lost, though we do know that Sherwood responded positively and sent Pauling data on hydrogen peroxide as a chemical fuel for combustion engines.

Bizarrely, following this last communication from Sherwood, no further mention of the hydrogen peroxide problem appears in Pauling's papers until February 1943, when a letter from Giguere demanded to know why Pauling's article - presumably on his hydrogen peroxide research - had never been published. In response, Pauling reported that he and Dr. Verner Schomaker had only recently completed the manuscript and would send it on to Giguere shortly. Interestingly, this report too appears to be absent from the archives. What's more, only a single page of hydrogen peroxide research remains in Pauling's research notebooks, detailing the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide in blood - a tantalizing entry that gives little indication of the nature of his research.

It is surprising that Pauling, who maintained comprehensive records of his research, possessed so few notes on his work with hydrogen peroxide. Whatever the cause may have been for this lapse in record keeping, it seems plausible that Pauling's early hydrogen work did have some long-term consequences. In 1942 Pauling began work on a war research project on the development of a plasma substitute eventually known as oxypolygelatin. This work was spawned from his private Caltech-based research into bovine gamma-globulin, possibly the cause of Pauling's initial experiments with blood and hydrogen peroxide. It may have also been this initial investigation that led Pauling to use hydrogen peroxide in the creation of oxypolygelatin. Unfortunately without reports or laboratory data, it is difficult to know exactly what Pauling's hydrogen peroxide research entailed or how it affected his later research. It seems this particular project will remain one of many small mysteries in Pauling's life.