| Summary: | <p>Autocatalysis is central to the propagation of living systems and is widely agreed to have played a central role in the emergence of life on earth. Chemical systems which self-reproduce like living cells can offer insight into the transition from chemistry to biology. Self-reproducing micelles and vesicles, or physical autocatalysts, are an important class of autocatalytic chemical systems that have used to model the first living systems for several decades.</p> <p>The study of physical autocatalysis has been restricted to a limited set of reactions, and hindered by experimental difficulties precluding full characterisation. Together these limitations pose both conceptual and technical barriers to a deeper understanding of this important class of prebiotic system. This thesis addresses both limitations in turn.</p> <p>Chapter 1 introduces the concept of physical autocatalysis and argues for its importance in the field of prebiotic chemistry. A survey of chemical models of physical autocatalysis is presented and the present work is placed into context.</p> <p>Chapter 2 describes the development of the first examples of physical autocatalysis driven by irreversible bond-forming reactions. Steps towards the development of asymmetric variations and systems of self-reproducing vesicles are discussed.</p> <p>Chapter 3 describes the application of interferometric scattering microscopy to physical autocatalysis, allowing for the first time the observation of micellar self-reproduction on the single particle level.</p> <p>Chapter 4 discusses the limitations of this work and argues that the results described in Chapters 2 and 3 respectively address major conceptual and technical barriers to the study of physical autocatalysis, with recommendations for future work. </p>
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