Nature Communications (Nov 2021)

An abiotic source of Archean hydrogen peroxide and oxygen that pre-dates oxygenic photosynthesis

  • Hongping He,
  • Xiao Wu,
  • Haiyang Xian,
  • Jianxi Zhu,
  • Yiping Yang,
  • Ying Lv,
  • Yiliang Li,
  • Kurt O. Konhauser

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26916-2
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

Read online

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) has been proposed as an electron donor for photosynthesis before water, however, the amount of H2O2 available on early Earth was thought to be limited. Here the authors propose a new abiotic pathway wherein abrasion of quartz surfaces would have provided enough H2O2.