Critical state of water

[Conceptual]

If one heats water under high pressure it will eventually change into its critical state. In the critical state, water can no longer define a liquid, but will become a dense fluid that occupies the same volume as liquid water.

 

The critical state of water changes the chemical properties of water. One change is that all minerials will increase their solubility in critical water. If one adds small ions and/or acids the solubility of minerials will increase even further.

 

If we look at the earth, water exists everywhere. Theoretically, critical water should be able to dissolve its way through the crust into the mantle of the earth. This should be driven by hydraulic pressure above and the mantle heat below flowing into the crust. Once in the mantle, the high temp of the mantle should then begin breaking the covalent bonds of water and cause critical water to change phase into chemical plasma water, composed of ionized oxygen and ionized hydrogen.

 

Here is the question. Since the center of the earth contains an iron core shouldn't the water and ions diffuse to the iron and cause corrosion? Let me rephrase the question, should plasma hydrogen from the upper mantle be able to diffusion through the mantle oxygen (psuedo-plasma water) and reach the core to cause corrosion?

[CPL.Luke]

first off plasma water can't exist, it will become hydrogen and oxygen. (ionized)

 

sencondly the mantle isn't hot enough to make hydrogen plasma, third even if it was the gas would b less dense than the surounding rock.

[Conceptual]

Maybe plasma is the wrong word. When the water enters the mantle the chemical bonds will be broken and the proton ionized. What one has is not a gas but ionized protond and ionized oxygen. There should be, at the very least, a concentration gradient for protons to want to flow inward. Oxygen is assumed, by most geochemists, to be throughout the mantle. Everywhere our diffusing protons finds oxygen, although not attached, I called water. At the iron core interface the protons and ionized oxygen will meet with metallic iron. It appears that corrosion should take place unless this is a super iron that does not obey the laws of chemistry.

[CPL.Luke]

no because water is a chemical compound formed by combining 2 hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom through covalent bonding, this covalent bonding forms some interesting molecular properties (polar bonding)

 

2 protons and an oxygen atom in the general vicinity of each other is not water, and does not share any chemical properties with water.

 

why would the protons tend to move downward?

[swansont]

The ionization energy for hydrogen is 13.6 eV. If we set that equal to kT, we get a temperature of almost 158,000 K. But what's, oh, three orders of magnitude between friends.

 

 

I think there's something wrong with your "critical state of water" premise.

[CPL.Luke]

swansont 3 orders of magnitude between 158000 k and what?

[swansont]

swansont 3 orders of magnitude between 158000 k and what?

And the boiling point of water (approximately), or, really, any temperature likely to be encountered on earth.

[Conceptual]

Although the ionization energy of hydrogen is high in a physics type environment, in a chemical environment hydrogen ionization happens all the time at much lower energies even at room temperature. The pH of liquid water creates H+ which ionizes the proton from the electrons. Within the mantle, there are plenty of close orbitals for hydrogen associated electrons to share, allowing the hydrogen to still see electrons, but not the ones it was born with when it entered the mantle as molecular water. One essentially has a proton still sharing electrons, while ionizing from billions of different electrons as it diffuses to the core.

 

It will dffuse to the core because of a concentration gradient. Hydrogen protons do not separate out of water or float to the top of a glass of water because the chemical association of the hydrogen to the fluid matrix is much stronger than the effects of gravity. Once they reach the core they should continue to diffuse into the space occupied by an iron core. This electron orbital sharing will loosen the iron matrix, allowing oxygen to enter. Maybe corrision is not the correct terms but oxidation is still occurring.

 

The bottom line is that because the oceans levels are not dropping, due to the concentration gradient between the surface water (hydrogen) and the mantle, which will be constantly renewed due to core hydrogne diffusion, implies that there can not be an iron core in the center of the earth. The iron core is based on tradition and dogma.

[insane_alien]

hydrogen atoms exist in water as hydronium H3O+ by attaching to a lone pair of electrons on a water molecule. this is why hydrogen ions don't leave water

[Conceptual]

That is correct. But that implies if electrons are available for the hydrogen to share the proton is not going anywhere but will try to fill in the volume due to the concentration gradient. The H3O+ does not sink to the bottom over time, but is a loose molecular configuration that will form and reform so that it can appears everywhere within the liquid volume. Hydrogen entering the mantle will want to diffuse in the direction of less hydrogen instead of more hydrogen; this should induce it inward.