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Polymer amide in the Allende and Murchison meteorites
Author(s) -
McGeoch Julie E. M.,
McGeoch Malcolm W.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
meteoritics and planetary science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.09
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1945-5100
pISSN - 1086-9379
DOI - 10.1111/maps.12558
Subject(s) - murchison meteorite , allende meteorite , meteorite , polymer , chemistry , parent body , polymerization , acid hydrolysis , chondrite , carbonaceous chondrite , hydrolysis , amide , organic chemistry , astrobiology , physics
It has been proposed that exothermic gas phase polymerization of amino acids can occur in the conditions of a warm dense molecular cloud to form hydrophobic polymer amide ( HPA ) (McGeoch and McGeoch 2014). In a search for evidence of this presolar chemistry Allende and Murchison meteorites and a volcano control were diamond burr‐etched and Folch extracted for potential HPA yielding 85 unique peaks in the meteorite samples via matrix‐assisted laser desorption time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry ( MALDI TOF / MS ). The amino acids after acid hydrolysis in Allende were below the level of detection but many of the Allende peaks via the more sensitive MALDI / TOF analysis could be fitted to a polymer combination of glycine, alanine, and alpha‐hydroxyglycine with high statistical significance. A similar significant fit using these three amino acids could not be applied to the Murchison data indicating more complex polymer chemistry.