Abiotic Organic Reactions at Mineral Surfaces

Abiotic organic reactions, such as hydrolysis, elimination, substitution, redox, and polymerization reactions, can be influenced by surfaces of clay and primary minerals, and of metal oxides. This influence is due to adsorption of the reactants to surface Lewis and Bronsted sites. Temperature and moisture content are the most important environmental variables. Under ambient environmental temperatures, some reactions are extremely slow. However, even extremely slow transformation reactions may be important from environmental and geochemical viewpoints.