Abstract
Recent synthetic efforts aimed at reconstructing the beginning of life on our planet point at the plausibility of scenarios fueled by extraterrestrial energy sources. In the current work we show that beyond nucleobases the sugar components of the first informational polymers can be synthesized in this way. We demonstrate that a laser-induced high-energy chemistry combined with TiO2 catalysis readily produces a mixture of pentoses, among them ribose, arabinose and xylose. This chemistry might be highly relevant to the Late Heavy Bombardment period of Earth’s history about 4–3.85 billion years ago. In addition, we present an in-depth theoretical analysis of the most challenging step of the reaction pathway, i.e., the TiO2-catalyzed dimerization of formaldehyde leading to glycolaldehyde.
Highlights
As 40% for the synthesis of sugars catalyzed by CaCO3 and apatite[12]
The peptide-catalyzed synthesis of sugars reported by Pizzarello and Weber proceeds with a relatively low yield but stereoselectively leads to D-sugars[13]
A frozen sample was prepared using liquid nitrogen, which was subsequently treated with 10 pulses of the Prague Asterix Laser System (PALS) in a cell filled with 760 Torr of nitrogen inert gas
Summary
As 40% for the synthesis of sugars catalyzed by CaCO3 and apatite[12]. The peptide-catalyzed synthesis of sugars reported by Pizzarello and Weber proceeds with a relatively low yield but stereoselectively leads to D-sugars[13]. We demonstrate that the crucial first step of the formose reaction yielding glycolaldehyde could be catalyzed by an anatase (TiO2) surface activated in such an impact. We mixed 1.0 g of paraformaldehyde sample with deionized water and a catalytic amount (0.1 g) of anatase form of titania TiO2.
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