Ben-Amots & Anbar: Sonochemistry on primordial Earth

ABSTRACT: Sonochemical processes are known to occur in nature and have occurred ever since there was liquid water on Earth. We advance a hypothesis that complex carbonaceous compounds, the probable precursors of life, were produced from simple primordial molecules by sonochemical processes in breaking waves of primordial seas or oceans. Our calculations show that these processes were much more common on Earth than other pathways, suggested for the formation of prebiotic complex carbonaceous compounds. The high occurrence rate of sonochemical events in breaking sea waves and the qualitative difference between sonochemical processes and other shock phenomena might have enabled formation of a variety of complex carbonaceous compounds, including amino acids, nucleotides and nucleosides, the precursors of RNA or DNA.

CONCLUSIONS: We have shown that the possibility that prebiotic complex carbonaceous compounds, formed in breaking sea and ocean waves by sonochemistry, may be highly relevant for evolvement of life on Earth's surface.

KEYWORDS: Sonochemistry; Prebiotic; Carbonaceous compounds; Cavitation; Waves; Oceans; Origin of life

Link to fulltext
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ultsonch.2006.12.007
Fulltext is also readable online in subscribing libraries in universities
OR
PRECURSORS OF LIFE Review

23 references
Anbar, M., "Cavitation during impact of liquid water on water: Geochemical implications," Science, v. 161, pp. 1343-1344 (1968)
and more 22 references.

Editorial Note, by Timothy J. Mason (Editor-in-chief of the journal "Ultrasonics Sonochemistry"):
In this issue we are introducing a new section for this Journal (Ultrasonics Sonochemistry), Discussion Papers. It is our intention that the occasional publication of articles in this section will cover topics which do not fit into the mainstream of Sonochemistry thinking and research. It is hoped that our readers will approach this new venture with an open mind and if they wish to comment on any of the points raised in these articles, each response will be considered for future publication in the Journal.
Timothy J. Mason (Editor-in-chief)

CITATIONS:
"The most significant outcome of the present study is that it underpins the hypothesis put forward by Ben-Amots and Anbar (2007) that cavitation chemistry could have been responsible for creating the first complex organic molecules on Earth and hence have been involved in the abiogenesis of life."
Dharmarathne and Grieser, J. Phys. Chem. A, v. 120, pp. 191-199 (2016) (see title below)

"These results suggest that cavitation could be a plausible driving force that contributed to the prebiotic synthesis of canonical nucleosides."
Patehebieke et. al, Cell Reports Physical Science, v. 2(3), 100375 (March 24, 2021) (See title below)

CITED BY:
Mawson, Raymond, & Knoerzer, Kai, "A brief history of the application of ultrasonics in food processing,"
19th International Congress on Acoustics, Madrid (September 2-7, 2007) link to fulltext

Pedro, Cintas, "On Cavitation and Chirality: A Further Assessment,"
Cryst. Growth Des., v. 8, No. 8, pp. 2626 2627 (July 4, 2008). See p. 2627

He, Yuanhua, "Sonochemistry and advanced oxidation processes: Synthesis of nanoparticles and degradation of organic pollutants,"
Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Melbourne, Australia (4.2009)

Dharmarathne, Leena, and Grieser, Franz,
"Formation of amino acids on the sonolysis of aqueous solutions containing acetic acid, methane, or carbon dioxide, in the presence of nitrogen gas,"
J. Phys. Chem. A, v. 120, pp. 191-199 (2016)

Kalson, Natan-Haim, Furman, David, and Zeiri, Yehuda,
"Cavitation-Induced Synthesis of Biogenic Molecules on Primordial Earth"
ACS Central Sci. (September 11, 2017)

Patehebieke, Y., Zhao, Z.R., Wang, S., Xu, H.X., Chen, Q.Q., Wang, X.,
Cavitation as a plausible driving force for the prebiotic formation of N9 purine nucleosides.
Cell Reports Physical Science, v. 2(3), 100375 (March 24, 2021)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrp.2021.100375
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/pdfExtended/S2666-3864(21)00065-5

R. Fernando Martinez, Giancarlo Cravotto, and Pedro Cintas,
Organic Sonochemistry: A Chemist s Timely Perspective on Mechanisms and Reactivity,
The Journal of Organic Chemistry (June 22, 2021)
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.joc.1c00805

Hao, Guo, Xiaoxiao, Yua, Mang, Lin,
Kinetic isotope effects in H2O2 self-decomposition: Implications for triple oxygen isotope systematics of secondary minerals in the solar system,
Earth and Planetary Science Letters (September 15, 2022)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2022.117722

Youbin, Zhou, Dapeng, Cao, Xianren, Zhang,
Degradation Mechanism of Micro-Nanobubble Technology for Organic Pollutants in Aqueous Solutions,
Nanomaterials (MDPI) (July 2022)

Weiliang Qi, Jiahao Liu, Xuyun Guo, Haichuan Guo, Tiju Thomas, Ye Zhu, Siqi Liu, and Minghui Yang
Vacancy-Defective Cobalt Nitride Nanostructures for Sonocatalytic Hydrogen Production Using Various Water Resources
ACS Appl. Nano Mater. 2023, 6, 4, 2636 2645 (February 8, 2023)
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsanm.2c05054

Rystedt, Karin,
Respiratory tract infections in primary care
School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Institute of Medicine, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
(2023)

Fang, Yuxi; Ding, Wei; Ying, Diwen; Zhang, Wendi; Jia, Jinping
Prebiotic Asymmetric Synthesis of Ribose by CO2 Reduction in Hydrodynamic Cavitation with Vortex
Research Square
(March 2024)
The author name is erroneously cited as Amots instead the correct family name Ben-Amots

Wei, Wei; Fengjian, Chu; Guanru, Chen; Shiwen, Zhou; Cuirong, Sun; Hongru, Feng;
Prebiotic Formation of Peptides Through Bubbling and Arc Plasma
Chemistry - A European Journal
30(42):e202401809
(2024)
DOI:10.1002/chem.202401809

Cited by
Dingwei Gan, Longfei Hong, Xiaofan Guo, Haoxuan Jiang, Santu Luo, Tianqi Zhang, Jianxi Ying, Rusen Zhou, Dingxin Liu, H. James Cleaves, Yufen Zhao, Renwu Zhou
Lightning-Driven Plasma Bubbles Provide Prebiotic Synthesis and Biogeochemical Cycling
Chemical Communications
• January 2026

RESPONSES:
Prof. Franz Grieser (Australia): I am pleased that you saw our article, as the study was inspired by your and Anbar s publication in Ultrasonics Sonochemistry. I was aware of Anbar s Science work but the paper with you, really addressed the idea in an interesting conceptual form. I was very pleased that we could confirm the hypothesis. 5 July 2016
Prof. Ariel Anbar (Arizona, U.S.A.): No doubt, my father would have been pleased. July 2016
Laszlo Attila Horvath (Geologist engineer, Hungary) Your paper sounds interesting. March 2017

AUTHOR'S COMMENTS (not included in the paper):
Ben-Amots: In his paper (Anbar, 1968) Anbar first suggested in the journal "Science"
that cavitation in breaking sea and ocean waves produced the first prebiotic complex compounds. Sorrowfully Anbar passed away in October 2014, before he could be told about the confirmation of his hypothesis.

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