Laboratory infrared spectra and fragmentation chemistry of sulfur allotropes.

ABSTRACT: Sulfur is one of six life-essential elements, but its path from interstellar clouds to planets and their atmospheres is not well known. Astronomical observations in dense clouds have so far been able to trace only 1 percent of cosmic sulfur, in the form of gas phase molecules and volatile ices, with the missing sulfur expected to be locked in a currently unidentified form. The high sulfur abundances inferred in icy and rocky solar system bodies indicate that an efficient pathway must exist from volatile atomic sulfur in the diffuse interstellar medium to some form of refractory sulfur. One hypothesis is the formation of sulfur allotropes, particularly of the stable S₈. However, experimental information about sulfur allotropes under astrochemically relevant conditions, needed to

SUBMITTER: Ferrari P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11251068 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature