Pre-enzymic origin of metabolic redox processes and of the energy storage processes

A treatment of the energetic conditions which regulate the non-equilibrium occurrence of metabolic redox processes associated with degradations of carbon chains or formations of condensed bonds shows that such processes are conditioned by the nature of the substrates and not by the preexistence of enzymic catalysts or cellular ultrastructures. An experimental program has been initiated to spectrophotometrically, electrochemically and chemically detect which redox components appear during model, studies of chemical evolution, operating from simple mixtures of CH₄, NH₃, H₂ and water and from the same mixtures with added phosphorus or sulfur derivatives and metal cations.