Electric Properties of Water Ice doped with Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2): Implications for Icy Moons such as Europa

Large floats of ice on Jupiter's moon Europa drift and collide. The float boundaries are marked by brownish-reddish colors. The origin of these colors is poorly understood. Maybe upwelling of water along the active float boundaries brings finely divided suspended matter or organic compounds from the ocean below to the surface, where the intense, high energy environment in Jupiter's radiation belt would lead to photochemical oxidation. At the same time it has been suggested that Europa's ice contains traces of H2O2, presumably due to micro-meteorite impacts and other processes. We measured the electric currents generated in pure and H2O2-doped water ice when we subjected one end of ice blocks to uniaxial stress. Ice samples with 0%, 0.3% and 0.03% H2O2 were formed in polyethylene troughs, 4.1 x 13.5 x 3.8 cm, with Cu contacts at both ends, at 263K (-10°C), 190K (-78°C, dry ice) and 77K (-196°C,liquid N2). At 77K the ice samples detached themselves from at least one of the Cu contacts, due to thermal contraction. At 190K, when stressing one end, essentially no currents were produced in the pure water ice. By contrast, H2O2-doped ices produced several hundred picoamperes (pA) of positive currents, indicating defect electrons (holes) flowing down the stress gradient. At 263K the results are ambiguous. These (as yet preliminary) results indicate that stresses might break the peroxy bonds of imbedded H2O2 molecules, releasing the same type of positive hole charge carriers as observed during stress experiments with silicate rocks. Since positive holes are defect electrons associated with O 2sp levels at the upper edge of the valence band, they seem to have the capability to spread through the ices. Chemically positive holes are equivalent to highly oxidizing oxygen radicals. They may be responsible for oxidation reactions along the boundaries of active ice floats on Europa.