Abstract
Clay minerals catalyze peptide bond formation in fluctuating environments. A number of plausible mechanisms have been proposed and tested. We are exploring the possibility that clays may actually be energizing the reaction by means of electronic excitation, creating mobile or trapped holes and electrons in the lattice. We have discovered that clays emit light upon dehydration. We are testing the correlation between dehydration-induced, or thermoluminescent, processes and the yield of glycine oligomers after treatments known to affect the luminescent yields in an effort to understand the catalytic mechanism.
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© 1981 D. Reidel Publishing Company
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Coyne, L.M., Lawless, J., Lahav, N., Sutton, S., Sweeney, M. (1981). Clays as Prebiotic Photocatalysts. In: Wolman, Y. (eds) Origin of Life. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-8420-2_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-8420-2_15
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