Analysis of the products of a negative corona discharge in a N₂-CH₄ mixture with added CO₂ used as a laboratory mimic of a prebiotic atmosphere

Mazankova, V.; Torokova, L.; Moravsky, L.; Matejcik, S.; Trunec, D.; Navratil, Z. and Mason, N. J. (2018). Analysis of the products of a negative corona discharge in a N₂-CH₄ mixture with added CO₂ used as a laboratory mimic of a prebiotic atmosphere. Contributions to Plasma Physics, 58(10) pp. 995–1004.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ctpp.201700089

Abstract

A negative corona discharge operating at atmospheric pressure has been used to initiate chemical reactions in a gaseous mixture of nitrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide. Such a mixture simulates the composition of the early Earth's atmosphere. This work extends our previous experimental studies of the chemistry of prebiotic atmospheres generated in an atmospheric‐pressure glow discharge. The present work is devoted to the study of the role of CO₂ in prebiotic atmospheric chemistry. The gas mixture was composed of nitrogen with 2–4% methane and 1% CO₂. The corona discharge was characterized by electrical measurements and optical emission spectroscopy. The reaction products from the discharge were further analysed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The composition of solid products deposited on the electrode tip was obtained by energy dispersive X‐ray (EDX) analysis. The specific input energy was altered during the experiments, and the concentration of all products was found to increase with its increase. It is further shown that while the addition of the CO₂ admixture leads to the generation of CO and H₂O, no other compounds containing oxygen were detected. The energy yields of products were calculated, and good agreement was found with the values obtained in previous experiments.

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• Item ORO ID
• 55669
• Item Type
• Journal Item
• ISSN
• 1521-3986
• Project Funding Details

• Funded Project Name	Project ID	Funding Body
  Not Set	AT-0063	CEEPUS
  Not Set	LD 15010	Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports
  Not Set	LD 15011	Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports
  Not Set	LO 1411	Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports
  Not Set	CM1401	European Cooperation in Science and Technology
  Not Set	TD1308	European Cooperation in Science and Technology
  Not Set	654208	European Union Horizon 2020
  Not Set	2020 RI	Europlanet

• Keywords
• FTIR spectroscopy; negative corona discharge; prebiotic atmosphere
• Academic Unit or School
• Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) > Physical Sciences
  Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)
• Copyright Holders
• © 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
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