Fig. 1: Previous work on cyclic ultraphosphates and non-cyclic ultraphosphates in this work with implications for prebiotic chemistry.
a Types of condensed phosphates and their chemical shift in 31P{1H}-NMR. b General synthesis protocol for polydisperse ultraphosphates and crystal structure of NdP5O1461. c Monodisperse ultraphosphates detected by Glonek in the condensation reactions of orthophosphoric acid or metaphosphates using carbodiimides or trichloroacetonitrile24,25,26,27,28. The structures in dashed boxes were further described in publications by Klein62, Taylor29, Jessen31, 32 and Cummins33. d General structures of ultraphosphates in this work and suggestion for prebiotically plausible phosphorylation reactions using ultraphosphates: uP4 (2) was used as a model substrate for polydisperse ultraphosphates arising from reactions of P4O10 in the presence of water59. The prebiotic phosphate cycle including phosphorus pentoxide from volcanic activity has already been proposed and meets the challenge of making phosphate available from low-solubility minerals56,57,58, 63.
