Defining Multiple Characteristic Raman Bands of α-Amino Acids as Biomarkers for Planetary Missions Using a Statistical Method

Biomarker molecules, such as amino acids, are key to discovering whether life exists elsewhere in the Solar System. Raman spectroscopy, a technique capable of detecting biomarkers, will be on board future planetary missions including the ExoMars rover. Generally, the position of the strongest band in the spectra of amino acids is reported as the identifying band. However, for an unknown sample, it is desirable to define multiple characteristic bands for molecules to avoid any ambiguous identification. To date, there has been no definition of multiple characteristic bands for amino acids of interest to astrobiology. This study examinedL-alanine, L-aspartic acid, L-cysteine, L-glutamine and glycine and defined several Raman bands per molecule for reference as characteristic identifiers. Per amino acid, 240 spectra were recorded and compared using established statistical tests including ANOVA. The number of characteristic bands defined were 10, 12, 12, 14 and 19 for L-alanine (strongest intensity band: 832 cm-1), L-aspartic acid (938 cm-1), L-cysteine (679 cm-1),L-glutamine (1090 cm−1) and glycine (875 cm-1), respectively. The intensity of bands differed by up to six times when several points on the crystal sample were rotated through 360 °; to reduce this effect when defining characteristic bands for other molecules, we find that spectra should be recorded at a statistically significant number of points per sample to remove the effect of sample rotation. It is crucial that sets of characteristic Raman bands are defined for biomarkers that are targets for future planetary missions to ensure a positive identification can be made

Structure and Vibrational Spectra of 1,3,5-Trimethoxybenzene

Inelastic neutron scattering infrared and Raman spectra of the crystalline 1,3,5-trimethoxybenzene were measured and compared with simulated ones by using the Gaussian 98 and DMol3 programs at density functional theory methods. Application of the double numerical plus polarization basis set for the crystalline state within the local density Perdew and Wang (PWC functionals) approximation quite well reproduces the low frequency bands related to the methyl group librational modes, which are very sensitive to molecular interactions. Infrared spectra for the crystalline sample and $CCl_4$ solution show spectacularly the change of low frequency modes by going from the symmetric $D_{3h}$ molecules in the gas phase to asymmetric ones in the crystal

p-N,N′-tetraacetylodiaminodurene. The structure and vibrational spectra

The crystal and molecular structure of p-N,N′-tetraacetylodiaminodurene (TADD) is reported based on the X-ray diffraction studies. The N-acetyl moieties are planar and all N-acetyl groups are perpendicular to the ring plane. Methyl groups both of acetyl moieties and of durene form a number of non-conventional hydrogen bonds with nitrogen and oxygen atoms. The vibrational spectra very well reflect the structure of molecules and their contacts. They are compared with calculated data by using various theoretical approaches. The neutron scattering spectra show two tunnel lines of low energy values (at ±0.9 and ±2.3 μeV at 4 K), which can be ascribed to methyl groups of N-acetyl moieties, which behave more freely than those attached to the phenyl ring

A method for production of nanoMOF and prelimiary characterization by selected analytical techniques

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a class of porous hybrid materials comprising metal ion-based vertices and multitopic organic ligands (linkers). The possibility of combining a wide range of metals with similarly large number of available ligands opens ways to design the structures meeting specific purposes. At present, many potential applications of MOFs may require them to be constructed at the nanometer length scale (nanoMOFs). The possibility of filling the track-etched membrane pores with MOF HKUST-1 has been demonstrated in this work