Efficient Activation of the Greenhouse Gas CO2

摘要

There is evidence that 3.8 billion years ago the geochemically important reduction of CO2, a principal component of volcanic exhalation gases, to CO played a pivotal role for the periodic formation of biomolecules. According to the water-gas shift reaction, CO2 could be reduced by dihydrogen to afford CO under these prebiotic conditions. Additionally, the possible prebiotic importance of CO was postulated by Wachtershauser and Huber in the context of the iron-sulfur-world hypothesis. They showed that CO can react to thioacetic acid methylester in the presence of methylthiol and NiFe-sulfides with subsequent hydrolysis to acetic acid. This reaction is assumed to be important in the chemoautotrophic origin of life in which primitive organisms consumed CO or CO2 from volcanic or hydrothermal sites for the formation of carbon-carbon bonds.