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44 (14), 4469–4482. Yamagata, Y., Inoue, H. and Inomata, K. (1995) Specific Effect of Magnesium Ion on 2’, 3’-Cyclic AMP Synthesis from Adenosine and Trimeta Phosphate in Aqueous Solution, Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 25, 47–52. Yamagata, Y. (1999) Prebiotic Formation of ADP and ATP from AMP, Calcium Phosphate and Cyanate in Aqueous Solution, Orig. Life Evol. Biosphere 29, 511–520. E-mail: prieur7@gmail.​com HCN Black Polymers: A Spectrometric/Spectroscopic Revision Ruiz-Bermejo M.1, Menor-Salván C.1, Rogero C.1, Osuna-Esteban S.1, Martín-Gago J. A.1,2, Veintemillas-Verdaguer S.1,2 1Centro de Astrobiología

(CSIC-INTA); 2Instituto de Ciencias de Materiales Selleckchem BAY 11-7082 de Madrid (CSIC) HCN is a ubiquitous molecule in the whole Universe and it is a main product in prebiotic simulation experiments (see e.g. Matthews and Minard, 2006, Chen and Chen, 2005, Saladino et al. 2004 and internal references). It has been proposed that the HCN polymers are important substances in the

first stages of Sclareol the chemical evolution to the emergence of life. In a general way, the hydrolysis of these polymers yields purines, pyrimidines, and amino acids, as well as of others compounds such as oxalic acid and guanidine (see e.g. Ferris et al. 1973, 1978, Voet and Schwartz 1983). However, in spite of the many efforts made to elucidate their structure and of the proposed models (CAL-101 concentration Umemoto et al. 1987, Ferris et al. 1981, Matthews and Moser 1967 and Völker 1960) some questions are still opened. Since these studies, experimental analytical techniques have advanced enormously. The development of new analytical techniques and the improvement of the resolution of the old ones allow us, nowadays, to solve problems, like the one we are discussing here. The aim of our work is, therefore, to go deeper into the resolution of the unanswered questions and for doing that we have combined many different techniques: FT-IR, CP-MAS 13C NMR, XPS, ESI-TOF, TOF-SIMS and elemental analysis. It is interesting to point out the use of XPS (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy) since this technique allows us to identify the elements on the samples as well as the chemical states of these elements. Thus, XPS is very usefull for the unambiguously assignment of nitrogen bonds in the HCN polymers. We found three types of nitrogen chemical environment: –C≡N, C=N and O=C–NH–.