High-Temperature Equation of State of FeH: Implications for Hydrogen in
Earth’s Inner Core
Abstract
While hydrogen is one of plausible major light elements in the core, the
high-temperature equation of state (EoS) of Fe-H alloy has not been
experimentally examined to the core pressure range. Here we measured the
volume (V) of non-magnetic (NM) fcc FeH at high pressure and temperature
(P-T) to 142 GPa and 3660 K in a laser-heated diamond-anvil cell (DAC)
and obtained its P-V-T EoS. An increase in the lattice volume of Fe per
H atom, ΔVH, determined as functions of P and T is found to be
substantially smaller than the volume of metallic H that has been used
to estimate H concentration in Fe-H alloy. The ΔVH is almost identical
between fcc and dhcp phases in the NM state, suggesting that it is
applicable to hcp. The extrapolation of ΔVH to inner core conditions
indicates its maximum H content to be 0.8–0.9 wt%.