Prebiotic synthesis of mineral-bearing microdroplet from inorganic carbon photoreduction at air–water interface

Abstract

The origin of life on Earth is an enigmatic and intricate conundrum that has yet to be comprehensively resolved despite recent significant developments within the discipline of archaeology and geology. Chemically, metal-sulfide minerals are speculated to serve as an important medium for giving birth in early life while yet so far direct evidence to support the hypothesis for the highly efficient conversion of inorganic carbon into praxiological biomolecules remains scarce. Here, we in this study, for the first time, employed sphalerite as a typical mineral and revealed its enormous capability for promoting the conversion of inorganic carbon into elementary biomolecule formic acid (HCOOH) in airborne mineral-bearing aerosol microdroplet, which is over two orders of magnitude higher than that of the corresponding conventional bulk-like aqueous phase medium in the environment (e.g. river, lake, sea, etc.). This significant enhancement was further validated by a wide range of minerals and clays including CuS, NiS, CoS, CdS, MnS, elemental sulfur, ATD, loess, nontronite, and montmorillonite. We reveal that the abundant interface of unique physical-chemical features instinct for aerosol or cloud microdroplets reduce the reaction energy barrier for the reaction, thus leading to extremely high HCOOH production (2.52 × 1014 kg per year). This study unfolds unrecognized remarkable contributions of the considered scheme in the accumulation of prebiotic biomolecules in the ancient period of the earth.

Spontaneous α‐C−H Carboxylation of Ketones by Gaseous CO2 at the Air‐water Interface of Aqueous Microdroplets

“…Ge et al. has also demonstrated that the gas‐liquid interface of microdroplets significantly accelerates photocatalytic CO 2 reduction reactions [29,30] …”

Unveiling the Role of Carbonate Radical Anions in Dust‐Driven SO2 Oxidation

“…1,000 ppmv by the end of the 21st century, leaving this trace gas even more potentially important in atmospheric relevant reaction (Xia et al, 2021). Despite the inactive chemical properties of this gas in the ambient environment, our group's recent study highlighted the key role of CO 2 in atmospherically photochemical processes and producing carbonate radical ions upon solar irradiation and participating in subsequent fast SO 2 oxidation, and reaction schemes are complicated by different authentic mineral dust particles and dust proxies (Deng et al, 2020;Ge et al, 2023;. Carbonate radical ions also show distinct effects on SO 2 oxidation rates and reaction channels in dark and light control experiments in specific meteorological conditions (e.g., low RH and weak light intensity).…”