In this paper, we report presence of various organic products formed in a flowing atmospheric glow discharge fed by gas mixture containing 1‐5 % of methane in nitrogen, which mimics the Titan's atmosphere. Gaseous products from the discharge exhaust were analysed by Gas Chromatography with Mass Spectrometry (GC‐MS). The experimental results revealed C2H2, HCN, and CH3CN as the major products. Various hydrocarbons and nitriles were the other determined gaseous products. Whilst many of these compounds have been predicted and/or observed in the Titan atmosphere, the present plasma experiments provide evidence of both the chemical complexity of Titan atmospheric processes and the mechanisms by which larger species grow prior to form the dust that should cover much of the Titan's surface. (© 2015 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

This work extends our previous experimental studies of the chemistry of Titan's atmosphere by atmospheric glow discharge. The Titan's atmosphere seems to be similarly to early Earth atmospheric composition. The exploration of Titan atmosphere was initiated by the exciting results of the Cassini-Huygens mission and obtained results increased the interest about prebiotic atmospheres. Present work is devoted to the role of CO in the prebiotic atmosphere chemistry. Most of the laboratory studies of such atmosphere were focused on the chemistry of N + CH mixtures. The present work is devoted to the study of the oxygenated volatile species in prebiotic atmosphere, specifically CO reactivity. CO was introduced to the standard N + CH mixture at different mixing ratio up to 5 % CH and 3 % CO. The reaction products were characterized by FTIR spectroscopy. This work shows that CO modifies the composition of the gas phase with the detection of oxygenated compounds: CO and others oxides. There is a strong influence of CO on increasing concentration other products as cyanide (HCN) and ammonia (NH).

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