The role of H2 in forming interstellar complex organics is still not clear due to the high activation energies required for “non-energetic” association reactions. In this work, we investigated the potential contribution of H2 to the hydrogenated species (HnNCO) formation on dust grains when the “energetic” processing is involved. The goal is to test whether an additional hydrogenation pathway is possible upon UV irradiation of a CO:H2 ice mixture. It is proposed that the electronically excited carbon monoxide (CO*) induced by UV-photons can react with a ground-state H2 to form HCO, ultimately enhancing the production of COMs in ice mantle.
