Hydrogen is potentially a key light element in the Earth's core. Determining the stability of iron hydride is essential for Earth's core mineralogy applications. We investigated the thermal stabilities of a range of Fe-H binaries at core P-T conditions. It is concluded that face-centered cubic phase FeH is stable in the Earth's inner core. The high mobility of hydrogen in the Fe lattice suggests that hydrogen is transferred to a superionic state under the inner core conditions, where the superionic state transfer temperature of H in Fe fcc lattice is similar to 500 K higher than that in hcp Fe system. The H concentration in the inner core is estimated to be similar to 0.92 wt% to explain its density deficit, this value was further constrained to similar to 0.21 wt% by matching the density jump at the inner-core boundary. H alongside other light elements are required to account for the geophysical observations of the Earth's inner core.
Publication name |
Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems, Volume 23, Issue 12, Article Number 2022GC010620, DOI 10.1029/2022GC010620, Published DEC 2022 |
Author(s) |
Yang, Hua; Muir, Joshua M. R.; Zhang, Feiwu |
Corresponding author(s) |
Zhang, Feiwu zhangfeiwu@vip.gyig.ac.cn Chinese Acad Sci, State Key Lab Ore Deposit Geochem, Inst Geochem, Guiyang, Peoples R China |
Author(s) from IGCAS |
Zhang, Feiwu; Yang, Hua; Muir, Joshua M. R. | View here for the details
|
|
|