Impact Synthesis of Prebiotic Organophosphoric Compounds in Schreibersite Materials

The meteoritic mineral schreibersite is a proposed abiotic source of phosphorus for phosphate ion (PO4^–) production, needed for nucleobases, phospholipids, and other life building materials. Schreibersite could have acted as both a source of elemental phosphorus and as a catalyst, and the hostile conditions on early Earth could have accelerated its degradation in different environments. By means of ab initio molecular dynamics calculations, we characterize Fe₃P schreibersite in its bulk phase and we investigate the stability of its low Miller index surfaces. Furthermore, we study water absorption on its most stable facet providing an important first set of bounding calculations in elucidating possible scheibersite corrosion and phosphate ion production. Finally, an approximate quantum simulation model in the framework of Density Functional Tight-Binding (DFTB) is derived, in order to carry shock-compression calculations and characterize schreibersite reactivity in acqueous environments under extreme thermodynamics conditions.