Chemoautotrophic theory

None of the biogenesis hypotheses previously discussed differs so clearly from all the other models as the chemoautotrophic theory proposed by the Munich patent attorney Dr. Gunter Wachtershauser. 

The first experiments on chemoautotrophic theory were carried out by Stetter at the University of Regensburg. It was found that synergy in the FeS/H2S system determined the reductive effect, for example, in the conversion of nitrate to ammonia or of alkynes to alkenes. The conditions used corresponded to those present in hydrothermal systems aqueous phase, 373 K, almost neutral pH and anaerobic conditions (Blochl et al 1992). Two years later, the formation of an amide bond without the use of a condensation agent was successfully demonstrated in the same laboratory (Keller et al 1994). 

About three years after Wachtershauser s first publication appeared, an article by Christian de Duve and Stanley Miller was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences under the title Two-Dimensional Life the title alluded to the theory of reactions at positively charged pyrite surfaces (de Duve and Miller, 1991). Their criticisms of the chemoautotrophic theory were directed particularly towards certain kinetic and thermodynamic aspects, but also to theoretical statements for which no experimental support was available. 

The common ancestor of life was probably a chemoautotrophic hyperthermophilic anaerobe. This metabolism first theory assumes that life started with catalytic metal sulfide surface/compartments in a hydro thermal-vent setting in the Hadean... 

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