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| Titel |
Parameters for the Pyrolysis of Organic Material - Perchlorate Mixtures |
| VerfasserIn |
Harald Steininger, Fred Goesmann, Walter Goetz |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2013
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 15 (2013) |
| Datensatznummer |
250076152
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The ESA-lead Mars rover ExoMars (launch in 2018) will carry a suit of instruments, one of the in-struments is the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer MOMA. Organic material in the Martian soil will be either pyrolyzed at temperatures of up to 1000°C and separated by gas chromatography or volatilized with the help of an UV-laser. A mass spectrometer will be the detector for both methods.
Chlorinated organics have been detected in pyroly-sis GC-MS experiments on Mars two times. The first time during the Viking mission in 1976 and a second time with the Sample Analysis on Mars (SAM) in-strument onboard the Curiosity rover in 2012. [1] [2]
The presence of perchlorates found by the Phoenix mission in 2008 [3] lead to the discovery that organic molecules not only get oxidized during pyrolysis, but also chlorinated organic compounds can be pro-duced. [4]
The parameters used for pyrolysis and the sample composition especially the distribution of organics and perchlorates within the sample and the concentrations of organics and perchlorate have a huge influence on the products created. It is possible to change the condi-tions of the pyrolysis by spatially separating the organ-ics from the perchlorates that the chloromethanes get the major product of the pyrolysis. This might help to understand the results of the (SAM) instrument yield-ing mono-, di- and trichloromethane and a chlorinated 4-hydrocarbon molecule.
References:
[1] Biemann K et al. (1977) JGR, 82, 4641–4658. [2] Grotzinger J. P et al. (2011) AGU Fall Meeting U13A-01 [3] Hecht M. H., et al. (2009) Science, 325 64-67. [4] Steininger H., Goesmann F., Goetz W. (2011) Planet. & Space Sci., 71, 9-17.
Acknowledgments:
This work was funded by DLR (FKZ 50QX1001) |
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