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Ultraviolet (UV) processing in the insterstellar medium (ISM) induces the dehydrogenation of hydrocarbons. Aliphatics, including alkanes, are present in different interstellar environments, being prevalently formed in evolved stars; thus, the dehydrogenation by UV photoprocessing of alkanes plays an important role in the chemistry of the ISM, leading to the formation of unsaturated hydrocarbons and eventually to aromatics, the latter ubiquitously detected in the ISM. Here, through combined experimental results and \textit{ab-initio} calculations, we show that UV absorption (mainly at the Ly-$\alpha$ emission line of hydrogen at 121.6 nm) promotes an alkane to an excited Rydberg state from where it evolves towards fragmentation inducing the formation of olefinic C=C bonds, which are necessary precursors of aromatic hydrocarbons. We show that photochemistry of aliphatics in the ISM does not primarily produce direct hydrogen elimination but preferential C-C photocleavage. Our results provide an efficient synthetic route for the formation of unsaturated aliphatics, including propene and dienes, and suggest that aromatics could be formed in dark clouds by a bottom-up mechanism involving molecular fragments produced by UV photoprocessing of aliphatics.

Laboratory astrochemistry aims at simulating in the laboratory some of the chemical and physical processes that operate in different regions of the Universe. Amongst the diverse astrochemical problems that can be addressed in the laboratory, the evolution of cosmic dust grains in the different regions of the interstellar medium (ISM) and its role in the formation of new chemical species through catalytic processes present significant interest. In particular, in the dark clouds of the ISM dust grains are coated by icy mantles and it is thought that the ice-dust interaction plays a crucial role in the development of the chemical complexity observed in space. Here, we present a new ultra-high vacuum experimental station devoted to simulate the complex conditions of the coldest regions of the ISM. The INFRA-ICE machine can be operated as a standing alone setup or incorporated in a larger experimental station called Stardust, which is dedicated to simulate the formation of cosmic dust in evolved stars. As such, INFRA-ICE expands the capabilities of Stardust allowing the simulation of the complete journey of cosmic dust in space, from its formation in asymptotic giant branch stars (AGBs) to its processing and interaction with icy mantles in molecular clouds. To demonstrate some of the capabilities of INFRA-ICE, we present selected results on the UV photochemistry of undecane (C$_{11}$H$_{24}$) at 14 K. Aliphatics are part of the carbonaceous cosmic dust and, recently, aliphatics and short n-alkanes have been detected in-situ in the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Silicon is present in interstellar dust grains, meteorites and asteroids, and to date thirteen silicon-bearing molecules have been detected in the gas-phase towards late-type stars or molecular clouds, including silane and silane derivatives. In this work, we have experimentally studied the interaction between atomic silicon and hydrogen under physical conditions mimicking those at the atmosphere of evolved stars. We have found that the chemistry of Si, H and H$_2$ efficiently produces silane (SiH$_4$), disilane (Si$_2$H$_6$) and amorphous hydrogenated silicon (a-Si:H) grains. Silane has been definitely detected towards the carbon-rich star IRC\,+10216, while disilane has not been detected in space yet. Thus, based on our results, we propose that gas-phase reactions of atomic Si with H and H$_2$ are a plausible source of silane in C-rich AGBs, although its contribution to the total SiH$_4$ abundance may be low in comparison with the suggested formation route by catalytic reactions on the surface of dust grains. In addition, the produced a-Si:H dust analogs decompose into SiH$_4$ and Si$_2$H$_6$ at temperatures above 500 K, suggesting an additional mechanism of formation of these species in envelopes around evolved stars. We have also found that the exposure of these dust analogs to water vapor leads to the incorporation of oxygen into Si-O-Si and Si-OH groups at the expense of SiH moieties, which implies that, if this type of grains are present in the interstellar medium, they will be probably processed into silicates through the interaction with water ices covering the surface of dust grains.

Interstellar carbonaceous dust is mainly formed in the innermost regions of circumstellar envelopes around carbon-rich asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars. In these highly chemically stratified regions, atomic and diatomic carbon, along with acetylene are the most abundant species after H$_2$ and CO. In a previous study, we addressed the chemistry of carbon (C and C$_2$) with H$_2$ showing that acetylene and aliphatic species form efficiently in the dust formation region of carbon-rich AGBs whereas aromatics do not. Still, acetylene is known to be a key ingredient in the formation of linear polyacetylenic chains, benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), as shown by previous experiments. However, these experiments have not considered the chemistry of carbon (C and C$_2$) with C$_2$H$_2$. In this work, by employing a sufficient amount of acetylene, we investigate its gas-phase interaction with atomic and diatomic carbon. We show that the chemistry involved produces linear polyacetylenic chains, benzene and other PAHs, which are observed with high abundances in the early evolutionary phase of planetary nebulae. More importantly, we have found a non-negligible amount of pure and hydrogenated carbon clusters as well as aromatics with aliphatic substitutions, both being a direct consequence of the addition of atomic carbon. The incorporation of alkyl substituents into aromatics can be rationalized by a mechanism involving hydrogen abstraction followed by methyl addition. All the species detected in gas phase are incorporated into the nanometric sized dust analogues, which consist of a complex mixture of sp, sp$^2$ and sp$^3$ hydrocarbons with amorphous morphology.