10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
[U08-P06] Development of a geochemical flow-reactor for reproduction of the origin of proto-metabolisms
Keywords:CO world, Flow reactor, Deep-sea hydrothermal vent
In the CO world theory, carbon monoxide (CO) was abundantly generated from carbon dioxide and became sources of various organic molecules required for the origin of life in the early Earth. Meanwhile, local micro-environments were necessary for evolution of prebiotic metabolic pathways to effectively concentrate the organic molecules and continuously progress specific and sequential chemical reactions. We focused on deep-sea alkaline hydrothermal fluid vents as a candidate of the geochemical fields in natural environments of the early Earth, and attempted to develop a flow-reactor to reproduce the micro-environments in laboratory. In the flow-reactor, alkaline hydrothermal fluid and neutral-weakly acidic cold seawater are mixed, and boundary of minerals wall is formed between the both fluids, resulting to sustain nonequilibrium conditions of temperature, pH, redox potentials, and concentrations of chemicals. We expect that addition of organic molecules produced in the CO world into the flow-reactor occurs various successive reactions, such as electrochemical, hydrothermal, minerals-catalytic, and chemiosmotic reactions in the micro spaces on/in the minerals wall. Coupling of the CO world and the geochemically specific micro-environment can be resulting in evolution of the proto-metabolism with specificity and robustness. In this presentation, we report about the development of the geochemical flow-reactor with the concept, design, and test operations.