Abundance of atoms in the interstellar medium is well understood in terms of nuclear reactions taking place inside stars, their masses and their evolution. In contrast,  the existence of clouds of small molecules in space is still an unexplained  puzzle. An example is the H2 molecule. It cannot be formed in the typical temperature and vacuum conditions to be found in the interstellar medium without the help of other intervening systems (i.e., dust grains), but it is readily observed. In this talk we shall review enthalpies of formation and barriers computed with ab-initio Density Functional Theory to obtain small organic molecules from dust carbonaceous surfaces. Preliminary simulations show that atomic Hydrogen, an abundant element in space, lowers considerably barriers to extract from graphene a number of small organic molecules like C2H2, C2H4, CH4,  C6H6, etc. We are currently exploring these rates in order to assess whether this might be a possible explanation to the detection of these products in the interstellar medium.

Formation of small hydrocarbon molecules from hydrogenated graphene

248th National Meeting (2014)

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