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. 2023 Nov 12;13(11):2201.
doi: 10.3390/life13112201.

The Nature of the Spark Is a Pivotal Element in the Design of a Miller-Urey Experiment

Sina Ravanbodshirazi  1 , Timothée Boutfol  1 , Neda Safaridehkohneh  1 , Marc Finkler  1 , Mina Mohammadi-Kambs  1 , Albrecht Ott  1
Affiliations

The Nature of the Spark Is a Pivotal Element in the Design of a Miller-Urey Experiment

Sina Ravanbodshirazi et al. Life (Basel). .

Abstract

Miller and Urey applied electric sparks to a reducive mixture of CH4, NH3, and water to obtain a complex organic mixture including biomolecules. In this study, we examined the impact of temperature, initial pressure, ammonia concentration, and the spark generator on the chemical profile of a Miller-Urey-type prebiotic broth. We analyzed the broth composition using Gas Chromatography combined with Mass Spectroscopy (GC/MS). The results point towards strong compositional changes with the nature of the spark. Ammonia exhibited catalytic properties even with non-nitrogen-containing compounds. A more elevated temperature led to a higher variety of substances. We conclude that to reproduce such a broth as well as possible, all the studied parameters need to be tightly controlled, the most difficult and important being spark generation.

Keywords: GC/MS; Miller–Urey; origin of life; spark.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Experiment setup.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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