Abstract
In recent years major advances in surface chemistry and surface functionalization have been performed through the development, most often inspired by living organisms, of versatile methodologies. Among those, the contact of substrates with aminomalononitrile (AMN) containing solutions at pH = 8.5 allows a conformal coating to be deposited on the surface of all known classes of material. Since AMN is a molecule probably formed in the early atmosphere of our planet and since HCN-based compounds have been detected on many comets and Titan (Saturn’s largest moon) it is likely that such molecules will open a large avenue in surface functionalization mostly for bio-applications. This mini review describes the state of the art of AMN-based coatings from their deposition kinetics, composition, chemical reactivity, hypothetical structure to their first applications as biomaterials. Finally, the AMN-based versatile coatings are compared to other kinds of versatile coating based on catecholamines and polyphenols.
Highlights
Questions about the origin of life on Earth started to be asked from a scientific point of view at the beginning of the 20th century
Besides the panspermia model in which the molecular building blocks of life are suspected to have an extra-terrestrial origin [1], theories emerged to describe the appearance of molecules able to yield building blocks of biomolecules from the chemical species present in the primitive atmosphere
The experiment performed by Stanley Miller showed the possibility to form amino acids, principally glycine, and some nucleobases [2,3]
Summary
Questions about the origin of life on Earth started to be asked from a scientific point of view at the beginning of the 20th century. Besides the panspermia model in which the molecular building blocks of life are suspected to have an extra-terrestrial origin [1], theories emerged to describe the appearance of molecules able to yield building blocks of biomolecules from the chemical species present in the primitive atmosphere This atmosphere, believed to be reductive, was submitted to high energy conditions like spark discharges, volcanic eruptions and so on. The HCN trimer, aminomalononitrile (AMN), has been demonstrated to polymerize spontaneously in slightly alkaline conditions and at ambient temperature, leading to the precipitation of a brown-reddish precipitate and to a conformal coating on almost all known classes of material [11] It is the aim of this mini-review to summarize the knowledge acquired about these coatings and to describe their possible applications in biomedical applications and environmental science. We compare AMN based coatings with other universal coatings such as those based on the oxidative polymerization/self-assembly of catecholamines
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