Atomistic insights into early-stage corrosion of bcc Fe surfaces in oxygen dissolved liquid lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE-O)

Abstract Classical molecular dynamics simulations with global neural network machine learning potential have been used to study early-stage oxidation and dissolution behaviors of bcc Fe surfaces contacting with stagnant oxygen dissolved liquid lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE-O). Both static and dynamic simulation results indicate that the early-stage oxidation and dissolution behaviors of bcc Fe show strong orientation dependence under the liquid LBE environments, which may explain experimental observations of uneven interface between iron-based materials and liquid LBE. Our investigations show that it is the delicate balance between the oxide growth and metal dissolution that leads to the observed corrosion anisotropy for bcc Fe contacting with liquid LBE-O.