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Crystalline polymeric carbon dioxide stable at megabar pressures
Kamil F Dziubek1, Martin Ende2, Demetrio Scelta3,4
1LENS, European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy, Via N. Carrara 1, I-50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Firenze, Italy. dziubek@lens.unifi.it.
Nature Communications
|August 10, 2018
Summary
Carbon dioxide (CO2) remains stable as a polymeric phase V under deep Earth mantle conditions. This research confirms its stability to 120 GPa, refuting earlier dissociation theories.
Area of Science:
- Geochemistry
- Materials Science
- High-Pressure Physics
Background:
- Carbon dioxide (CO2) exhibits a complex phase diagram at high pressures.
- Understanding CO2 phases is crucial for deep carbon cycle research.
- Previous studies debated the stability and nature of CO2 phases above 40 GPa.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the stability of CO2 phases under high-pressure and temperature conditions relevant to Earth's deep mantle.
- To determine the equation of state for CO2 phases up to 120 GPa.
- To clarify the behavior of CO2 at extreme pressures, addressing previous experimental discrepancies.
Main Methods:
- Static synchrotron X-ray diffraction experiments.
- Raman spectroscopy under megabar pressures.
- High-pressure and temperature annealing experiments.
Main Results:
- Evidence for the stability of the polymeric phase V of CO2 at relevant mantle conditions.
- Extended the equation of state for CO2 up to 120 GPa.
- Observed no dissociation into diamond and ε-oxygen or ionization, contrary to prior findings.
- Annealing removed deviatoric stress and lattice deformation, indicating CO2-V stability above 1 megabar.
Conclusions:
- The polymeric phase V of CO2 is stable at pressures and temperatures relevant to Earth's lowermost mantle.
- CO2 does not dissociate or ionize at these extreme conditions.
- CO2-V is the stable structure of carbon dioxide above 1 megabar.
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