Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Polymerization Of Amino Acids On Kaolinite, Z. Badri Adnani-Gleason

Dissertations and Theses

In the origin of life on the primitive earth a major step must have involved the condensation of amino acids to form the first polypeptides. Several suggestions as to how this might have occurred have been made by other workers. One of the more appealing proposals is that the polymerization was catalyzed by clay minerals. It has been reported, for example, that L-apartic acid polymerizes significantly faster than D-aspartic in the presence of kaolinite in aqueous suspension at 90˚. In this work an attempt was made to repeat this report and extend the pH range to include values presumably present …