Possibility of primitive energy-harnessing system

February 23, 2011—LANL scientists recently conducted research that may prove the possibility of energy transfer and storage during Earth's prebiotic era-before living things.

One theory holds that the first cell-like structures resulted from the self-assembly of fatty acids to form vesicles, or membrane-enclosed sacks, that can store or transport substances. But this hypothesis leaves many questions unanswered, including how these vesicles could harness energy for the needed chemical reactions, an essential step for creating more complex systems.

The research

James Boncella and Jon Cape of the Laboratory's Materials Chemistry and collaborator Pierre-Alain Monnard of the University of South Denmark and formerly of the Lab's Earth Systems Observations conducted research that suggests light-activated (photocatalytic) reactions of organic molecules in fatty acid membranes offer a credible method for energy transfer and storage in prebiotic systems. The scientists think that a very primitive energy-harnessing system could be formed from chemicals, such as short-chain fatty acids and aromatic hydrocarbons, that originate from interstellar space and arrived on Earth via meteorites rich in carbon.

What they found

The researchers learned that the photocatalytic reactions in the system-where catalysts are activated by light-could capture and store energy from the sun. This is the first example of such chemistry in a simple fatty acid membrane.

The Royal Society of Chemistry's popular science journal, Chemistry World, highlighted the research, and the journal Chemical Science published the work.