Electrocatalytic Reductive Functionalization of Carbon Dioxide

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K15671
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 36020:Energy-related chemistry
• Research Institution: Tokyo Institute of Technology
• Principal Investigator: Li Yamei 東京工業大学, 地球生命研究所, 特任准教授 (10745128)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: Asteroid Ryugu / Carbonaceous chondrite / Amino acid / Electrochemistry / Mineral catalysis / Aqueous alteration

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Organic evolution on carbonaceous chondrites gives important clues on the evolutionary history occured on the early Solar System bodies. We have clarified the following: 1)the degradation effect of aqueous alteration on proteinogenic amino acids. The alfa-amino acids tend to decompose electrochemically via deamination and decarboxylation pathways; 2)the origin of heterogenity of amino acid distribution on various types of carbonaceous chondrite parent bodies. We proposed that the difference in the core and mantle within a water/rock differentiated parent planetesimal is the origin for such heterogenity.
These results have important implications on meteorites' contribution to life's origin and guiding the search for life's building blocks in space. The results were published on two peer-reviewed papers (Nat. Comm., 2022 and Sci. Adv., 2023) and reported in several domestic and international conferences.

Free Research Field

Organic cosmochemistry; Astrobiology

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

Origin of life's building blocks is key to understand the origin of life (OOL). This research proposed a new model based on the non-equilibrium thermodynamics, which brings new insights into the organic chemical evolution on the Solar System small bodies and meteorites' contribution to OOL.