The photochemical evolution of PAHs delivered to a planetary surface environment by meteoritic sources is of great interest to early Earth origin-of-life studies, Mars origin-of-life speculations, as well as current organic molecule detection efforts on Mars. Of prebiotic interest to both Earth and Mars are clay-rich environments, and the evolution of organic carbon molecules within them. In this work we experimentally tested the effect of UV irradiation on different PAHs adsorbed to nontronite clay using the spike technique. Experiments were performed at the INAF Observatory of Arcetri and in the PALLAS chamber at Utrecht University and were monitored with in-situ diffuse reflectance infrared spectrometry (DRIFTS) measurements. PAHs and any degradation products were extracted post-irradiation. Analyses were performed with in situ Diffuse Reflectance Infrared Fourier Transform (DRIFT) spectroscopy and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR).
The data is provided in 6 subfolders. Detailed information about the files in these subfolders as well as information on how the data is processed is given in the explanatory file PAHs_Data_description.pdf. Contact person is Nina Kopacz - researcher - k.a.kopacz@uu.nl or Inge Loes ten Kate - Project Leader - i.l.tenkate@uu.nl
