ArticleNature communications2025
Heat flows solubilize apatite to boost phosphate availability for prebiotic chemistry.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Low-Molecular-Weight Polyols as Key Factors in Sulfur- and Borate-Mediated Protomembrane Formation Before the RNA World.Membranes · 2026Review
- Chemical Routes to Primitive Membranes: Prebiotic Lipid Formation at the Origin of Life.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Space ionizing radiation triggers the formation of peptides and organophosphates on olivine surfaces.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Magmatic immiscibility provides phosphate for prebiotic chemistry.Science advances · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Phosphorus is an essential building block of life, likely since its beginning. Despite this importance for prebiotic chemistry, phosphorus was scarce in Earth's rock record and mainly bound in poorly soluble minerals, with the calcium-phosphate mineral apatite as key example. While specific chemical boundary conditions have been considered to address this so-called phosphate problem, a fundamental process that solubilizes and enriches phosphate from geological sources remains elusive. Here, we show that ubiquitous heat flows through rock cracks can liberate phosphate from apatite by the selective removal of calcium. Phosphate's strong thermophoresis not only achieves its 100-fold up-concentration in aqueous solution, but boosts its solubility by two orders of magnitude. We show that the heat-flow-solubilized phosphate can feed the synthesis of trimetaphosphate, increasing the conversion 260-fold compared to thermal equilibrium. Heat flows thus enhance solubility to unlock apatites as phosphate source for prebiotic chemistry, providing a key to early life's phosphate problem.
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Registered trials
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