Pressure supercritical water/rock

The supercritical fluid of interest is charged at ambient temperature to a suitable gas/liquid compressor, where it is compressed and delivered to a high-pressure equilibrium view cell. The constant-volume high-pressure view cell is immersed in a water bath, which can easily be controlled to within 0.rC. The pressure of the system is measured with an appropriate Bourdon tube Heise gage. The cell contents are mixed when the cell is rocked approximately 180°, causing a small stirring bar previously inserted into the cell to move through the cell contents. 

These reactions could occur at temperatures -150-200 °C, where olivine transforms into serpentine, magnetite and brucite with the release of H2. At these temperatures, combined with the pressures encountered at the hydrothermal sites, many compounds are in their supercritical state and peculiar chemistry can occur. In this IJMS issue on the Origin of Life, syntheses of amino acids in a mixture of supercritical C02-liquid water (10 1) starting with hydroxylamine hydrochloride and pyruvic or glyoxylic acid are reported [52]. A hypothesis for the origin of the living systems could consequently be found at the bottom of the oceans, in ul-tramafic hosted hydrothermal systems, where tectonic plates separate to leave the upper mantle rock reacts with seawater to form hydro thermally altered peridotites and lead to the necessary molecules for life to emerge. 

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