Iron‐Silicate Chemical Garden Morphology and Silicate Reactivity with Alpha‐Keto Acids

Abstract

AbstractChemical gardens, which are self‐organizing, abiotic, inorganic precipitates in far‐from‐equilibrium systems, are of interest for prebiotic chemistry/origin of life research and, under certain reaction systems, can be considered hydrothermal vent analogs. While the presence of different additives to chemical gardens, including phosphate and amino acids, have been explored, the reactivity of organic molecules in chemical garden systems is not well understood. Here we explored the reactivity of two metabolically important alpha‐keto acids (pyruvic acid and glyoxylic acid) and ammonia in the presence of iron‐silicate chemical gardens. While reactivity was not observed in the case of pyruvic acid, we found that glyoxylic acid formed alpha‐hydroxy acids and amino acids. We found that the observed organic reactivity can be attributed to the silicate in the exterior solution as opposed to the solid iron‐containing chemical garden structure. These results have implications for the reactivity of hydrothermal vent chimneys and their surrounding environments in iron‐ and silica‐rich systems.