Chemolytic Analysis of Macromolecular Organic Matter--A Proof of Concept

大分子有机物的化学分析--概念验证

• 批准号: 9617411
• 负责人: Stuart Wakeham
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Skidaway Institute of Oceanography
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing grant
• 财政年份: 1997
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1997-03-01 至 1999-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9617411&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Chemolytic; Analysis; Macromolecular; Organic; Matter

One of the most challenging problems in the field of organic geochemistry is the determination of the chemical and physical structure of fossil organic macromolecules -- that is, macromolecules originating from living organisms but no longer contained in them. These 'geopolymers' are often of exceedingly high-molecular weight and so highly cross-linked that they are difficult to work with in the laboratory. Coal, peat, and kerogen are important examples. While technological developments in chemical instrumentation over past three decades have allowed us to penetrate the structures of a great many macromolecules in living organisms (e.g., proteins, nucleic acids), the intractable nature of geopolymers has severely limited extension of the same technology to the study of coal, peat, kerogen, and other high molecular weight geopolymeric substances. In this study, the principal investigators will attempt to make inroads into this problem by studying the fossil organic matter in two sediments: a relatively young marine sediment from the Peru continental margin, and a Miocene shale from the Monterey Formation. To keep this difficult task manageable, their approach will concentrate primarily on just one class of organic constituents that make up the organic matrix in these sediments - lipids. Using a series of chemical degradation and solvent extraction steps (chemolysis), the macromolecular structure will be broken apart and the pieces, especially lipid fragments, will be indentified and quantified. By carrying out the chemolysis in a methodological, stepwise fashion, the investigators hope to be able to draw inferences about the overall polymeric structure, the processes involved in its formative history, and its reactivity.

有机地球化学领域中最具挑战性的问题之一是确定化石有机大分子的化学和物理结构 - 即，源自生物有机体但不再包含的大分子。这些“地球聚合物”通常具有极高的分子重量，并且相互交联非常高，以至于它们在实验室中很难使用。煤炭，泥炭和动物基是重要的例子。尽管过去三十年来化学仪器的技术发展使我们能够穿透生物体中许多大分子的结构（例如蛋白质，核酸），但地球聚合物的棘手性质严重地将同一技术扩展到对煤炭，煤炭，peat，peat，peat，peat，peat，peat，kerogen，kerogen，kerogen，kerogen，kerogen，kerogen，keregen，keregen，keregent，keregent，keregent and high Inereclocar topleterancess的研究中。在这项研究中，首席研究人员将通过研究两个沉积物中的化石有机物来试图侵犯这一问题：秘鲁大陆边缘的相对年轻的海洋沉积物和蒙特雷组的中新世页岩。为了使这项艰巨的任务可管理，他们的方法主要集中在仅一类有机成分上，这些有机成分构成了这些沉积物中的有机基质 - 脂质。使用一系列的化学降解和溶剂提取步骤（化学解释），大分子结构将被拆分，并且碎片，尤其是脂质片段将被缩进和定量。通过以方法论，逐步进行化学解析，研究人员希望能够推断出整体聚合结构，其形成史涉及的过程及其反应性。