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Nitrogen Is In Liquid Metal Form Inside Earth's Core (eurekalert.org)
hackingbear writes: A team of scientists from China, the U.S., and U.K. successfully turned nitrogen, the dominant gas in Earth's atmosphere, into a metallic fluid by subjecting it to the extreme pressure and temperature conditions found deep inside the Earth and other planets. Their findings have been published in the journal Nature Communications .
"Our findings could inform the efforts to create forms of energetic nitrogen polymers as well as superconducting, metallic states of a sister diatomic molecule, hydrogen or H2, which could revolutionize the energy sector if reliably synthesized," according to team member Nicholas Holtgrewe. The project was funded by by the (U.S.) National Science Foundation, the (U.S.) Army Research Office, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Chinese Academy of Science, the British Council Researcher Links Program, and other sources. According to EurekAlert, "The researchers found that the temperature at which nitrogen transitions from insulating to metallic decreases as the pressure increases -- starting at about 1,180,000 times normal atmospheric pressure (120 gigapascals) and 2,720 degrees Celsius (3,000 kelvin)." "This means that, theoretically, nitrogen would remain in its diatomic state in the Earth's mantle but would disassociate into a fluid metal in or just above the core, which potentially has implications for our understanding of the planet's deep nitrogen cycle," said team member Sergey Lobanov.
"Our findings could inform the efforts to create forms of energetic nitrogen polymers as well as superconducting, metallic states of a sister diatomic molecule, hydrogen or H2, which could revolutionize the energy sector if reliably synthesized," according to team member Nicholas Holtgrewe. The project was funded by by the (U.S.) National Science Foundation, the (U.S.) Army Research Office, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Chinese Academy of Science, the British Council Researcher Links Program, and other sources. According to EurekAlert, "The researchers found that the temperature at which nitrogen transitions from insulating to metallic decreases as the pressure increases -- starting at about 1,180,000 times normal atmospheric pressure (120 gigapascals) and 2,720 degrees Celsius (3,000 kelvin)." "This means that, theoretically, nitrogen would remain in its diatomic state in the Earth's mantle but would disassociate into a fluid metal in or just above the core, which potentially has implications for our understanding of the planet's deep nitrogen cycle," said team member Sergey Lobanov.
... whether they actually proved that there is metallic nitrogen within the Earth core. TFA says that the pressure and temperatures there are compatible with the existence of metallic nitrogen, but that isn't the same things as proving that there is metallic nitrogen at the core.
It is also unclear how this could revolutionize the "energy sector". Do they imply that metallic hydrogen at 100+ GPa and 3000K would be a practical means for energy distribution? First, metallic hydrogen has only (controversially) been achieved in a lab with in minute quantities and using a diamond anvil, and second, constructing a container capable of the those kinds of pressures and temperatures is quite difficult and highly impractical to handle, just from a pressure point of view.
The weight of a spherical pressure vessel is proportional to its maximum pressure. So, given a container capable of a specific volume and 100 bars, the corresponding 100 GPa vessel with the same volume would be 10 000 times heavier. A scuba tank capable of that would thus weigh around 200 tonnes.
Then we have valves, tubes, pressure regulators. I wonder what they would look like...
... doesn't mean it'll exist there. Who knows what sort of unusual chemical reactions would occur at those temperatures and pressures with the other elements also swilling around down there. Until someone put a representative mix of elements into a pressure vessel mimicking those conditions we simply have no idea what could be down there. It might even be something chemists and physicists haven't even dreamed of. And as for what is going on in the cores of the gas giants....