What is "thermosynthesis"

n. 1 (context chemistry English) The synthesis of a material at high temperature 2 (context biology English) The supposed use of heat cycles or gradients by organisms to obtain energy

Thermosynthesis is a theoretical mechanism proposed by Anthonie Muller for biological use of the free energy in a temperature gradient to drive energetically uphill anabolic reactions. It makes use of this thermal gradient, or the dissipative structure of convection in this gradient, to drive a microscopic heat engine that performs condensation reactions. Thus negative entropy is generated. The components of the biological thermosynthesis machinery concern progenitors of today's ATP synthase, which functions according to the binding change mechanism, driven by chemiosmosis. Resembling primitive free energy generating physico-chemical processes based on temperature-dependent adsorption to inorganic materials such as clay, this simple type of energy conversion is proposed to have sustained the origin of life, including the emergence of the RNA World. For this RNA World it gives a model that describes the stepwise acquisition of the set of transfer RNAs that sustains the Genetic code. The phylogenetic tree of extant transfer RNAs is consistent with the idea.

Thermosynthesis may still occur in some terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments. However, no organisms are known at present that use thermosynthesis as a source of energy, although it is possible that it might occur in extraterrestrial environments where no light is available, such as on the subsurface ocean that may exist on the moon Europa. Thermosynthesis also permits a simple model for the origin of photosynthesis. It has moreover been used to explain the origin of animals by symbiogenesis of benthic sessile thermosynthesizers at hydrothermal vents during the Snowball Earths of the Precambrian. Preliminary experiments have started to attempt to isolate thermosynthetic organisms.