Products Cited in Publications Worldwide Understanding Titan’s Prebiotic Chemistry: Synthesizing Amino Acids Through Aminonitrile Alkaline Hydrolysis

Understanding Titan’s Prebiotic Chemistry: Synthesizing Amino Acids Through Aminonitrile Alkaline Hydrolysis

Farnsworth, Kendra K; McLain, Hannah L; Chung, Angela; Trainer, Melissa G

DOI:

Abstract

Titan is an ocean world with a plethora of organic material inits atmosphere and on its surface, making it an intriguing location in thesearch for habitable environments beyond Earth. Settled aerosols will mixwith transient surface melts following cryovolcanic eruptions and impactevents, driving hydrolysis reactions and prebiotic chemistry. Previous studieshave shown that the hydrolysis of laboratory-synthesized Titan organics leadsto the production of amino acids and other prebiotic molecules. The exactmolecular structure of Titan aerosols remains unclear, yet aminonitriles havebeen hypothesized to be among the organic components. This laboratorystudy tested three reaction pathways that could potentially lead to theformation of amino acids: aminoacetonitrile → glycine, 2-aminopropaneni-trile → alanine, and 4-aminobutanenitrile → γ-aminobutyric acid. Liquidchromatography mass spectrometry (LCMS) is used to quantify theabundance of amino acids over a 6-month period. We conclude that ammonia plays a key role in the synthesis of amino acidsfrom aminonitriles, while the inclusion of salts (1 wt %) and minerals (25 mg/mL) did not have a significant effect on amino acidformation compared to ammonia. Rate constants (k) for alkaline hydrolysis of the aminonitriles were calculated. Our results suggestthat if Titan’s surface melts have a composition, including at least 5% ammonia in water, and if aminonitriles are present in Titan’sorganic aerosols, then amino acids will likely form. These results are highly relevant to the Dragonfly mission to Titan, which willsample impact melt material at Selk crater to search for prebiotic molecules.

Keywords

titan ; hydrolysis ; prebiotic chemistry ; amino acids ; alkaline

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