Did Salts in Seawater Play an Important Role in the Adsorption of Molecules on Minerals in the Prebiotic Earth? The Case of the Adsorption of Thiocyanate onto Forsterite-91

Thiocyanate may have played as important a role as cyanide in the synthesis of several molecules. However, its concentration in the seas of the prebiotic Earth could have been very low. Thiocyanate was dissolved in two different seawaters: a) a composition that comes close to the seawater of the pre...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Origins of life and evolution of biospheres 2023-12, Vol.53 (3-4), p.127-156
Main Authors: Ferreira, Giulio Wilgner, Samulewski, Rafael Block, Ivashita, Flávio Francisco, Paesano, Andrea, Urbano, Alexandre, Zaia, Dimas Augusto Morozin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adsorption
Artificial seawater
Astronomy
Astrophysics and Astroparticles
Biochemistry
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Cyanides
Earth
Earth Sciences
Kinetics
Life Sciences
Magnesium
Mars
Minerals
Observations and Techniques
Prebiotics
Salts
Seawater
Solar system
Sulfates
Thiocyanates
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Summary:Thiocyanate may have played as important a role as cyanide in the synthesis of several molecules. However, its concentration in the seas of the prebiotic Earth could have been very low. Thiocyanate was dissolved in two different seawaters: a) a composition that comes close to the seawater of the prebiotic Earth (seawater-B, Ca 2+ and Cl − ) and b) a seawater (seawater-A, Mg 2+ and SO 4 2− ) that could be related to the seas of Mars and other moons in the solar system. In addition, forsterite-91 was a very common mineral on the prebiotic Earth and Mars. Two important results are reported in this work: 1) thiocyanate adsorbed onto forsterite-91 and 2) the amount of thiocyanate adsorbed, adsorption thermodynamic, and adsorption kinetic depend on the composition of the artificial seawater. For all experiments, the adsorption was thermodynamically favorable (ΔG 
ISSN:0169-6149
1573-0875
DOI:10.1007/s11084-023-09640-3