We review some issues relevant to volatile element chemistry during accretion of the Earth with an emphasis on historical development of ideas during the past century and on issues we think are important. These ideas and issues include the following: (1) whether or not the Earth accreted hot and the geochemical evidence for high temperatures during its formation, (2) some chemical consequences of the Earth’s formation before dissipation of solar nebular gas, (3) the building blocks of the Earth, (4) the composition of the Earth and its lithophile volatility trend, (5) chemistry of silicate vapor and steam atmospheres during Earth’s formation, (6) vapor - melt partitioning and possible loss of volatile elements, (7) insights from hot rocky extrasolar planets. We include tabulated chemical kinetic data for high-temperature elementary reactions in silicate vapor and steam atmospheres. We finish with a summary of the known and unknown issues along with suggestions for future work.

我们回顾了与地球增长过程中有关挥发性元素化学的一些问题，重点是过去一个世纪中思想的历史发展以及我们认为重要的问题。这些想法和问题包括以下内容：（1）地球是否在形成过程中积聚了高温以及地球化学证据表明高温，（2）在太阳星云气体消散之前地球形成的一些化学后果，（3）地球的基本组成部分，（4）地球的组成及其亲石性的挥发性趋势，（5）地球形成过程中硅酸盐蒸气和蒸汽气氛的化学性质，（6）蒸气-熔体分配和挥发性元素的可能损失，（7 ）从炎热的岩石太阳系外行星获得的见解。我们包括了在硅酸盐蒸气和蒸汽气氛中高温元素反应的列表化学动力学数据。我们以已知和未知问题的摘要以及对未来工作的建议作为结尾。