CAREER: Comprehensive Chemical and Isotopic Characterization of Abiotic Organic Synthesis: An Experimental Study and Its Implication for Organic Formation in Hydrothermal Systems

GSTDTAP

项目编号	1652481
	CAREER: Comprehensive Chemical and Isotopic Characterization of Abiotic Organic Synthesis: An Experimental Study and Its Implication for Organic Formation in Hydrothermal Systems
	Qi Fu
主持机构	University of Houston
项目开始年	2017
	2017-05-01
项目结束日期	2022-04-30
资助机构	US-NSF
项目类别	Continuing grant
项目经费	133411(USD)
国家	美国
语种	英语
英文摘要	For the most part, naturally occurring organic compounds found on the surface of the Earth are thought to result from processes that involve living things. There are, however, processes that create organic molecules that do not require life or the activity of any living or previously living thing. These are called abiotic (i.e., not biological) processes. One of these is the Fischer-Tropsch process which converts inorganic carbon monoxide and hydrogen into liquid hydrocarbons. It is suspected that this process is important in earth systems, like seafloor hydrothermal vents, where seawater circulating deep into the ocean crust gets heated by magmatic bodies and reacts at relatively high temperatures with surrounding rocks altering them and creating hydrocarbons without the influence of organisms or their organic products. This Faculty Early Career Development Project establishes an integrated research and education program at the University of Houston that is dedicated to improving our understanding of abiotic organic synthesis processes in seafloor hydrothermal systems, which have been proposed as possible sites for prebiotic organic synthesis and the origin of life on Earth. The reaction mechanisms and controlling factors of the resulting organic formation process will be studied in the laboratory at conditions analogous to those present in natural seafloor hydrothermal environments. Research will involve a combination of laboratory experiments, advanced analytical techniques for chemical and isotopic characterization, and a comparison of experimental results to samples from seafloor hydrothermal vents. Broader impacts of the work include tight integration of education and research activities designed to improve undergraduate and graduate education, with a focus of engaging students from minority groups, under-represented in the sciences, in the research program. It will also involve extensive interaction with the local Houston school district to reach out to middle and high school students to give them firsthand knowledge of how cutting edge geochemical research on the origin of life and generation of hydrocarbons is done. This will be accomplished via K-12 tours of the laboratory facilities and discussion with the researcher and his students on how these kinds of experiments are carried out and how the resulting data are analyzed and interpreted. Goals of this outreach are to raise students' awareness of science and how it is done and to motivate them into building careers in geosciences. Additional impacts include building infrastructure for science through the development of new analytical techniques and reactor design. Other impacts of the work include support an early career faculty member and has the potential to cross fields to inform and find application in the chemical and petroleum engineering fields. This research is fundamental to understanding the formation of abiotically generated organic molecules in seafloor hydrothermal systems. It will examine Fisher-Tropsch reactions associated with the abiotic generation of hydrocarbons. A laboratory experimental program that uses a novel reactor and state-of-the-art analytical methods will be carried out to study fluid-mineral-catalyzed organic synthesis at high temperatures and conditions similar to those in hydrothermal systems on mid-ocean ridges. Experimental charges will include natural minerals similar to those in seafloor environments; and experiments will focus on identifying reaction mechanisms that occur during organic synthesis. During the project, reaction mechanisms of abiotically generated organic compounds will be studied and systematic identification of molecular species in liquid, gas, and species adsorbed on mineral surfaces that are generated under a variety of physicochemical conditions in a state-of-the-art reactor system will be determined. Analytical work will include the use of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, pyrolysis gas chromatographic mass spectrometry, nano-secondary ion mass spectrometry, and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. In addition, the carbon and hydrogen isotope signatures of newly generated organic compounds will be measured and the isotope signature of abiotically generated methane will be analyzed using the clumped isotope method to try to determine whether controlling factors affecting formation, other than temperature, are in play. In particular, compounds such as long chain hydrocarbons, homologous alkanes, alcohols, and carboxylic acids will be targeted because each is associated with a different reaction mechanism. Results of the laboratory experiments will be compared to the composition and physico-chemical conditions of formation of select vent fluid samples that were collected on oceanographic expeditions to mid-ocean ridge hydrothermal vents.
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文献类型	项目
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.173/C666/handle/2XK7JSWQ/71006
专题	环境与发展全球科技态势
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Qi Fu.CAREER: Comprehensive Chemical and Isotopic Characterization of Abiotic Organic Synthesis: An Experimental Study and Its Implication for Organic Formation in Hydrothermal Systems.2017.