The hydrogen-based direct reduction of iron ores is a disruptive routine used to mitigate the large amount of CO ₂ emissions produced by the steel industry. The reduction of iron oxides by H ₂ involves a variety of physicochemical phenomena from macroscopic to atomistic scales. Particularly at the atomistic scale, the underlying mechanisms of the interaction of hydrogen and iron oxides is not yet fully understood. In this study, density functional theory (DFT) was employed to investigate the adsorption behavior of hydrogen atoms and H ₂ on different crystal FeO surfaces to gain a fundamental understanding of the associated interfacial adsorption mechanisms. It was found that H ₂ molecules tend to be physically adsorbed on the top site of Fe atoms, while Fe atoms on the FeO surface act as active sites to catalyze H ₂ dissociation. The dissociated H atoms were found to prefer to be chemically bonded with surface O atoms. These results provide a new insight into the catalytic effect of the studied FeO surfaces, by showing that both Fe (catalytic site) and O (binding site) atoms contribute to the interaction between H ₂ and FeO surfaces.

Fundamental understanding of the oxidation behavior of O ₂, H ₂O, and CO ₂ in the process of oxyfuel combustion is of great significance. Extensive MD simulations with reactive force-field (ReaxFF) were performed to compare the gasification behavior under the individual influence of three oxidant molecules on a pristine and a mono-vacant graphene sheet. Distinct differences were observed in almost every aspect including initial kinetics, rate changes, complete/incomplete combustion, gasified regions, and the role of vacancy defects. In the case of O ₂, the nucleation stage is harder while the later stages contained no limiting behavior; The gasification kinetics is highest for H ₂O during initial periods, but the oxidative behavior changes as higher gas consumption levels are reached; CO ₂ has the highest thermodynamic stability and the formation of stable intermediate structures troubles the gasification. Significant out-of-plane activity is observed in the case of H ₂O oxidant. Results suggest that there may be little overlap in the oxidation sites for CO ₂ and H ₂O. In-depth atomic level investigations consistent with the experimental phenomenon will have implications for future design, process optimization, and their commercial application.

With the aim to find the best simulation routine to accurately predict the ground−state structures and properties of iron oxides (hematite, magnetite, and wustite) using density functional theory (DFT) with Hubbard-U correction, a significant amount of DFT calculations were conducted to investigate the influence of various simulation parameters (energy cutoff, K-point, U value, magnetization setting, smearing value, etc.) and pseudopotentials on the structures and properties of iron oxides. With optimized simulation parameters, the obtained equation of state, lattice constant, bulk moduli, and band gap is much closer to the experimental values compared with previous studies. Due to the strong coupling between the 2p orbital of O and the 3d orbital of Fe, it was found that Hubbard-U correction obviously improved the results for all three kinds of iron oxides including magnetite which has not yet been tested with U correction before, but the U value should be different for different oxides (3 ev, 4 ev, 4 ev for hematite, magnetite, and wustite, respectively). Two kinds of spin magnetism settings for FeO are considered, which should be chosen according to different calculation purposes. The detailed relationship between the parameter settings and the atomic structures and properties were analyzed, and the general principles for future DFT calculation of iron oxides were provided.