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Updated: Jul 9, 2025

Experimental Methods for Efficient Solar Hydrogen Production in Microgravity Environment
Published on: December 3, 2019
Direct production of molecular oxygen from carbon dioxide and helium ion collisions
Yaya Zhi1, Qiang Guo1, Jingchen Xie1
1Department of Chemical Physics, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), University of Science and Technology of China, 230026, Hefei, China.
Abstract:
The prebiotic mechanism to produce molecular oxygen (O2) in carbon dioxide (CO2)-rich planetary atmospheres is of great importance in understanding astrochemical reactions and is potentially relevant to the origin of life on Earth. Here, we demonstrate that, aside from the direct productions of O2 by photodissociation and dissociative electron attachment, the low-energy ion-molecule reaction between cationic helium in solar winds and molecular CO2 is a noticeable mechanism. Branching ratios of the reaction channels are determined, and their absolute cross-sections are estimated accordingly. The present findings represent a further, indispensable step towards fully understanding the origins of atmospheric O2.
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