Laser Spark Formamide Decomposition Studied by FT-IR Spectroscopy

Abstract

High-resolution FT-IR spectroscopy was used for the analysis of the products of formamide dissociation using a high-energy Asterix laser. In the experiment, the detected products of the formamide LIDB dissociation were hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, hydroxylamine, and methanol. The molecular dynamics of the process was simulated with the use of a chemical model. The chemistry shared by formamide and the products of its dissociation is discussed with the respect to the formation of biomolecules.

High Energy Radical Chemistry Formation of HCN-rich Atmospheres on early Earth

“…Discharge experiments have been conducted in a glow–discharge emission cell for spectroscopic monitoring of unstable products using time–resolved spectroscopy. The principles of the method have been discussed in our previous papers 13,41,57 . Briefly, a mixture of the gases and the precursor molecules (CH 4 , CO, HCONH 2 , HCHO, CH 3 OH or CH 3 CN) in nitrogen buffer gas or ammonia was directed to a positive column discharge tube equipped with CaF 2 windows.…”

High-energy chemistry of formamide: A unified mechanism of nucleobase formation

“…The dielectric of gaseous nitrogen represents an atmosphere in which hot, dense plasma is formed, and the liquid sample represents a lagoon containing formamide (29). The unstable radicals produced in the formamide dissociation have been identified and quantified using time-resolved discharge emission spectroscopy (30,31) and the models of plasma chemistry described in our previous work (17).…”

HNCO-based synthesis of formamide in planetary atmospheres

“…Formamide-based chemistry is a broadly discussed scenario relating to the origin of biomolecules (Saladino et al 2004(Saladino et al , 2012bFerus et al 2011bFerus et al , 2012Ferus et al , 2014Ferus et al , 2017bSaitta & Saija 2014;Pino et al 2015;Šponer et al 2016a,b;Adam et al 2018;Becker et al 2018;Benner et al 2012). Besides the traditional HCNand reducing-atmospheres based biomolecules synthesis (Ferris et al 1974;Yuasa et al 1984;Levy et al 1999;Sutherland 2016;Civiš et al 2017), the current evidence shows that the formamide molecule did not necessary play role of merely starting parent prebiotic precursor, but also it could serve as an intermediate compound in prebiotic synthesis (Ferus et al 2017b).…”

“…Albeit HNCO is denoted as a typical product of the formamide decay (Kakumoto et al 1985;Liu et al 2000;Gorb et al 2005;Kang & Kim 2006;Antol et al 2008;Eckert-Maksić et al 2010;Nguyen et al 2011;Ferus et al 2011bFerus et al , 2014, the current study intends to experimentally prove that the reversible reaction pathway (i.e., connecting HNCO to formamide) is possible. Moreover, by means of ab initio molecular dynamics simulations coupled with state-of-the-art metadynamics techniques such a chemical conversion has been characterized at the atomistic and thermodynamical level, whereas several spectroscopic measurements have been performed in order to identify the chemistry underlying HNCO mixtures under glow discharge conditions.…”