Characterization of Monosubstituted Benzene Ices

Aromatic structures are fundamental for key biological molecules such as RNA and metabolites and the abundances of aromatic molecules on young planets are therefore of high interest. Recent detections of benzonitrile and other aromatic compounds in interstellar clouds and comets have revealed a rich aromatic astrochemistry. In the cold phases of star and planet formation, most of these aromatic molecules are likely to reside in icy grain mantles, where they could be observed through IR spectroscopy. We present laboratory IR spectra of benzene and four monosubstituted benzene molecules—toluene, phenol, benzonitrile, and benzaldehyde—to determine their IR ice absorbances in undiluted aromatic ices, and in mixtures with water and CO. We also characterize the aromatic ice desorption rates, and extract binding energies and respective pre-exponential factors using temperature-programmed desorption experiments. We use these to predict at which protostellar and protoplanetary disk temperatures these molecules sublimate into the gas phase. We find that benzene and monosubstituted benzene derivatives are low-volatility with binding energies in the 5220–8390 K (43–70 kJ mol−1) range, which suggests that most of the chemistry of benzene and of functionalized aromatic molecules is to be expected to occur in the ice phase during star and planet formation.