Radiation chemistry of an aqueous solution of glycine: compounds of interest to chemical evolution studies.

We have examined the radiolysis of an O2-free aqueous solution of glycine at absorbed doses of 60Co gamma-radiation of up to 20 Mrad. At least 20 compounds are formed during radiolysis, among them several amino acids, an oligoamine, and the nitrogen-free polymers (Mw less than or equal to 28,000 daltons). When dicyandiamide is present in the solution of glycine, various nitrogen-containing products, including some polymers (Mw less than or equal to 12,000 daltons), are synthesized along with radiolytic products of glycine; polyglycines are not formed. We have determined the radiation-chemical yields of radiolytic-product formation and of decomposition of glycine, and have considered possible free-radical reactions leading to the radiation-induced changes observed.

Radiation chemistry of a multicomponent aqueous system relevant to chemistry of cometary nuclei.

We have examined a water-dominated multicomponent system after irradiation in the multimegarad dose range with gamma rays from a 60Co source at both 77 and 310 K. The constituents were simple organic compounds in the proportions in which they appear in a dense interstellar cloud: HCN/CH3OH/CH3CN/C2H5CN/HCOOH = 1:0.6:0.2:0.1:0.05. The total amounts were adjusted to correspond to a carbon to nitrogen ratio of 1.8 and a water content of about 50% in a cometary nucleus where the dust to volatiles ratio is 1; the total amount of CN-bearing compounds was taken to correspond to 0.4% of the cometary mass. In experiments at 310 K about 40 radiolytic products are identified, among them aldehydes and amino and carboxylic acids. Abundant polymeric material (Mw up to 80,000 daltons) is formed. The basic aspects of radiolysis of the liquid system are present also at 77 K, although at radiation-chemical yields that are lower by one to two orders of magnitude. We have considered the relevance of the present findings to the chemistry of a liquid-water core and the icy layers of a cometary nucleus.