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The abiotic polymerization of amino acids may have been important for the origin of life, as peptides may have been components of the first self-replicating systems. Though amino acid concentrations in the primitive oceans may have been too dilute for significant oligomerization to occur, mineral surface adsorption may have provided a concentration mechanism. As unactivated amino acid polymerization is thermodynamically unfavorable and kinetically slow in aqueous solution, we studied mainly the reverse reaction of polymer degradation to measure the impact of mineral surface catalysis on peptide bonds. Aqueous glycine (G), diglycine (GG), diketopiperazine (DKP), and triglycine (GGG) were reacted with minerals (calcite, hematite, montmorillonite, pyrite, rutile, or amorphous silica) in the presence of 0.05 M, pH 8.1, KHCO3 buffer and 0.1 M NaCl as background electrolyte in a thermostatted oven at 25, 50 or 70 °C. Below 70 °C, reaction kinetics were too sluggish to detect catalytic activity over amenable laboratory time-scales. Minerals were not found to have measurable effects on the degradation or elongation of G, GG or DKP at 70 °C in solution. At 70 °C pyrite was the most catalytic mineral with detectible effects on the degradation of GGG, although several others also displayed catalytic behavior. GGG degraded ∼1.5–4 times faster in the presence of pyrite than in control reactions, depending on the ratio of solution concentration to mineral surface area. The rate of pyrite catalysis of GGG hydrolysis was found to be saturable, suggesting the presence of discrete catalytic sites on the mineral surface. The mineral-catalyzed degradation of GGG appears to occur via a GGG → DKP + G mechanism, rather than via GGG → GG + G, as in solution-phase reactions. These results are compatible with many previous findings and suggest that minerals may have assisted in peptide synthesis in certain geological settings, specifically by speeding the approach to equilibrium in environments where amino acids were already highly concentrated, but that minerals may not significantly alter the expected solution-phase equilibria. Thus the abiotic synthesis of long peptides may have required activating agents, dry heating at higher temperatures, or some form of phase separation.

Interactions between aqueous amino acids and mineral surfaces influence many geochemical processes from biomineralization to the origin of life. However, the specific reactions involved and the attachment mechanisms are mostly unknown. We have studied the adsorption of l -aspartate on the surface of rutile (α-TiO 2 , pH PPZC = 5.4) in NaCl(aq) over a wide range of pH, ligand-to-solid ratio and ionic strength, using potentiometric titrations and batch adsorption experiments. The adsorption is favored below pH 6 with a maximum of 1.2 μmol of adsorbed aspartate per m 2 of rutile at pH 4 in our experiments. The adsorption decreases at higher pH because the negatively charged aspartate molecule is repelled by the negatively charged rutile surface above pH PPZC . At pH values of 3–5, aspartate adsorption increases with decreasing ionic strength. The adsorption of aspartate on rutile is very similar to that previously published for glutamate ( Jonsson et al., 2009 ). An extended triple-layer model was used to provide a quantitative thermodynamic characterization of the aspartate adsorption data. Two reaction stoichiometries identical in reaction stoichiometry to those for glutamate were needed. At low surface coverages, aspartate, like glutamate, may form a bridging-bidentate surface species binding through both carboxyl groups, i.e. “lying down” on the rutile surface. At high surface coverages, the reaction stoichiometry for aspartate was interpreted differently compared to glutamate: it likely involves an outer-sphere or hydrogen bonded aspartate surface species, as opposed to a partly inner-sphere complex for glutamate. Both the proposed aspartate species are qualitatively consistent with previously published ATR–FTIR spectroscopic results for aspartate on amorphous titanium dioxide. The surface complexation model for aspartate was tested against experimental data for the potentiometric titration of aspartate in the presence of rutile. In addition, the model correctly predicted a decrease of the isoelectric point with increased aspartate concentration consistent with previously published studies of the aspartate–anatase system. Prediction of the surface speciation of aspartate on rutile indicates that the relative proportions of the two complexes are a strong function of environmental conditions, which should be taken into account in considerations of geochemical systems involving the interactions of biomolecules and minerals in electrolyte solutions.

Formaldehyde (HCHO), the simplest aldehyde, is an intermediate oxidation state one carbon molecule that exists transiently but prominently in the abiological carbon cycle, and is ubiquitous in the cosmos. Its potential prebiotic importance is suggested by the fact that it readily undergoes a variety of addition and redox reactions to give products of biological significance including sugars and amino acids. It is especially important with respect to the origin of an RNA or pre-RNA world, since HCHO may be a precursor to ribose and other sugars. HCHO is introduced to the environment by a number of processes including atmospheric and aqueous phase synthesis as well as extraterrestrial delivery, balanced by various destructive processes such as photolysis and redox equilibration in hydrothermal environments. While the Strecker synthesis of amino acids can occur at very low dilution, even best case scenarios for HCHO steady-state concentrations in the primitive oceans are too low for the formation of sugars to occur. Concentration mechanisms would thus be necessary. As HCHO is volatile, direct evaporation is not possible, but other geochemical mechanisms such as eutectic freezing and conversion to non-volatile derivatives by reaction with other species present in the primitive environment, followed by evaporation, could have concentrated HCHO sufficiently to allow for sugar synthesis.