Extreme accumulation of ammonia on electroreduced mackinawite: An abiotic ammonia storage mechanism in early ocean hydrothermal systems

Abstract

An increasing amount of evidence suggests that early ocean hydrothermal systems were sustained sources of ammonia, an essential nitrogen species for prebiotic synthesis of life’s building blocks. However, it remains a riddle how the abiotically generated ammonia was retained at the vent–ocean interface for the subsequent chemical evolution. Here, we demonstrate that, under simulated geoelectrochemical conditions in early ocean hydrothermal systems ( ≤ − 0.6 V versus the standard hydrogen electrode), mackinawite gradually reduces to zero-valent iron ( Fe 0 ), generating interlayer Fe 0 sites. This reductive conversion leads to an up to 55-fold increase in the solid/liquid partition coefficient for ammonia, enabling over 90% adsorption of 1 mM ammonia in 1 M NaCl at neutral pH. A coordinative binding of ammonia on the interlayer Fe 0 sites was computed to be the major mechanism of selective ammonia adsorption. Mackinawite is a ubiquitous sulfide precipitate in submarine hydrothermal systems. Given its reported catalytic function in amination, the extreme accumulation of ammonia on electroreduced mackinawite should have been a crucial initial step for prebiotic nitrogen assimilation, paving the way to the origin of life.