Altered chemistry of oxygen and iron under deep Earth conditions

Jin Liu, Qingyang Hu (), Wenli Bi, Liuxiang Yang, Yuming Xiao, Paul Chow, Yue Meng, Vitali B. Prakapenka, Ho-Kwang Mao () and Wendy L. Mao ()
Additional contact information
Jin Liu: Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research
Qingyang Hu: Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research
Wenli Bi: Argonne National Laboratory
Liuxiang Yang: Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research
Yuming Xiao: Argonne National Laboratory
Paul Chow: Argonne National Laboratory
Yue Meng: Argonne National Laboratory
Vitali B. Prakapenka: University of Chicago
Ho-Kwang Mao: Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research
Wendy L. Mao: Stanford University

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract A drastically altered chemistry was recently discovered in the Fe-O-H system under deep Earth conditions, involving the formation of iron superoxide (FeO2Hx with x = 0 to 1), but the puzzling crystal chemistry of this system at high pressures is largely unknown. Here we present evidence that despite the high O/Fe ratio in FeO2Hx, iron remains in the ferrous, spin-paired and non-magnetic state at 60–133 GPa, while the presence of hydrogen has minimal effects on the valence of iron. The reduced iron is accompanied by oxidized oxygen due to oxygen-oxygen interactions. The valence of oxygen is not –2 as in all other major mantle minerals, instead it varies around –1. This result indicates that like iron, oxygen may have multiple valence states in our planet’s interior. Our study suggests a possible change in the chemical paradigm of how oxygen, iron, and hydrogen behave under deep Earth conditions.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-08071-3 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-08071-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-08071-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().