[X] My Assistant

[ngunn]

From 'Science Daily':

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/...90825163726.htm

[Juramike]

From a practical standpoint, I've always wondered why (organic amine or heterocylic amine) free bases are so sticky and difficult to work with, yet when you acidify and make the corresponding acid salt (e.g. pyridinium hydrochloride) it behaves more like an ideal free flowing powder.

Under Titan conditions, any organic amines would likely form as the free base. Assuming the ammonia/water ocean and solid ices derived from that, the free base form of any organics would also be preferred.

So theoretically at least, from either a kinetic (formation) or thermodynamic (equilibrium with the environment) standpoint, the free base form on Titan should be preferred.


Why are free bases in general more sticky than the salt forms? Speculating wildly, it could be that the free base amines form relatively weak transient H-bond interactions between the molecules in the solid network. These sloppy intramolecular bonds make the intramolecular arrangments less ordered. But protonate them up under acidic conditions, and you force a local cationic charge that can set up a more defined and orderly network of cation-counterion <and solvent> couples. A more ordered network makes a more solid matrix.

But that's about the limit of my knowledge of atomic-level surface science....

In any case, knowing the exact composition of Titan dune sands is going to be key.