Synthesis and Compressibility of Novel Nickel Carbide at Pressures of Earths Outer Core

We report the high-pressure synthesis and the equation of state (EOS) of a novel nickel carbide (Ni3C). It was synthesized in a diamond anvil cell at 184(5) GPa through a direct reaction of a nickel powder with carbon from the diamond anvils upon heating at 3500 (200) K. Ni3C has the cementite-type structure (Pnma space group, a = 4.519(2) angstrom, b = 5.801(2) angstrom, c = 4.009(3) angstrom), which was solved and refined based on in-situ synchrotron single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The pressure-volume data of Ni3C was obtained on decompression at room temperature and fitted to the 3rd order Burch-Murnaghan equation of state with the following parameters: V-0 = 147.7(8) angstrom(3), K-0 = 157(10) GPa, and K-0 = 7.8(6). Our results contribute to the understanding of the phase composition and properties of Earths outer core.
Funding Agencies|Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (BMBF)Federal Ministry of Education & Research (BMBF) [05K19WC1]; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)German Research Foundation (DFG) [DU 954-11/1, DU 393-9/2, DU 393-13/1]; Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linkoping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU) [2009 00971]