Experimental investigations of hydrothermal abiotic organic carbon production in the absence of minerals
PhD project of Chanakan Boonnawa
Hovedinnhold
Project title
Experimental investigations of hydrothermal abiotic organic carbon production in the absence of minerals
Supervisors
Assoc. Prof. Eoghan P. Reeves and Prof. Ida H. Steen
Funding
Research Council of Norway FRINATEK project “HyPOD”, and the Thai Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research, and Innovation
Project description
Abiotic production of organic carbon species in seafloor hydrothermal system has long been postulated. It has gained the community’s attention as it may be a reasonable supply source of prebiotic organic compounds leading to the emergence of life on early earth and other worlds. Apart from the ‘Fischer-Tropsch-type (FTT)’ synthesis (solid-phase catalyzed), an alternative pathway for abiotic organic carbons production is the mineral-free (homogeneous) sequential carbon reduction. Despite being more applicable to natural hydrothermal system, the latter is less studied.
In this project, I am aiming to (i) further develop our understanding of homogeneous (in the absence of solid-phase catalyzers) abiotic production of simple organic carbon compounds in hydrothermal conditions using detailed high temperature and pressure experimentation and (ii) use field data from natural fluid samples collected from a site of suspected abiotic synthesis to better constrain the geochemical settings in which abiotic synthesis can occur. During the project, 3 different sets of detailed experiments will be conducted in order to elucidate the following topics (i) methanol (CH3OH) and methane (CH4) production as a function of pH (ii) effects of H2S on hydrothermal single carbon reduction (iii) constraining the reactivity and fate of methanethiol (CH3SH) in seafloor hydrothermal conditions.
