This method heats up formamide under 120 degree Celsius conditions within a sealed flask for 5 hours to form adenine.

After the 5 hours have passed and the formamide-phosphorus oxychloride-adenine solution cools down, water is put into the flask containing the formamide and now-formed adenine.

Because charcoal has a large surface area, it is able to capture the majority of molecules that pass a certain size (greater than water and formamide) through it.

In DNA, adenine binds to thymine via two hydrogen bonds to assist in stabilizing the nucleic acid structures.

[7][8] Experiments performed in 1961 by Joan Oró have shown that a large quantity of adenine can be synthesized from the polymerization of ammonia with five hydrogen cyanide (HCN) molecules in aqueous solution;[9] whether this has implications for the origin of life on Earth is under debate.

[10] On August 8, 2011, a report, based on NASA studies with meteorites found on Earth, was published suggesting building blocks of DNA and RNA (adenine, guanine and related organic molecules) may have been formed extraterrestrially in outer space.

[11][12][13] In 2011, physicists reported that adenine has an "unexpectedly variable range of ionization energies along its reaction pathways" which suggested that "understanding experimental data on how adenine survives exposure to UV light is much more complicated than previously thought"; these findings have implications for spectroscopic measurements of heterocyclic compounds, according to one report.