--- Robin > One is forced to wonder where all the Oxygen went.... my guess would be that it combined with the Fe to form Fe2O3 (rust).
They state that the iron is a "catalyst" - not a reactant. If true, a catalyst does not participate in the reaction. When Algae and bacteria use an iron or manganese catalyst to metabolize CO2, the oxygen is released as O2 but this requires solar photons of the correct wavelength to operate on the band gap of the nascent MnO in order to release the O from the catalyst (over-simplification). In effect, the catalyst is being rejuvenated. Anyway, is there reason to believe that this can happen only in "life" ? and that it is not relevant otherwise? ... it is possible that the sodium plays a significant role here, but it is not clear how. Of equal interest geologically, in the large trona beds where the soda is found and mined today, and which were once brackish lakes, what happened to the chlorine? ... that is, assuming that some of the sodium there originally came from NaCl and there is almost no Cl left in the soda when it is mined? Otherwise, are we to assume that some inland lakes somehow do not accumulate any NaCl at all? BTW - these beds of trona have been exposed to unshaded solar irradiation for millions of years. If there ever was a place where one could expect to find evidence of "particles" from solar wind which have accumulated over the eons, this is it. I guess if this reaction (soda --> phenol) were to be replicated, and IF it turned out that O2 were actually being released, then ... ... if an observer wanted to get real crazy (and if that observer had an appreciation of the possibilities of redundant ground state protium, it would be possible to suggest that that the O2 is being released due to the iron catalyst being "renewed" by the action of that "mystery particle" ... It would be interesting to know if there were any UV emissions coming from the hydro-thermal refluxing, wouldn't it? Jones
