First-principles calculations of Mg2FeH6 under high pressures and hydrogen storage properties.

We report on structural properties, elastic constants, mechanical and dynamical stabilities, electronic band structure, and hydrogen storage applications of Mg₂FeH₆ at zero and high-pressure effects. The work has been realized within the full-potential linearized augmented plane wave method. At zero pressure, the material under study is stable and has a ductile nature. The electronic structure of the material of interest is determined to be X-X wide direct band gap semiconductor with an energy of 1.88 eV. The hydrogen storage capacity wt (%) and the hydrogen desorption temperature are reported as 5.473 and 625.47 K respectively. The Debye temperature ϴ_D is recorded as 698 K using the elastic constants and about 775 K using the Gibbs calculations. Under high-pressure effect up to 80 GPa, the semiconductor still be an X-X semiconductor with an energy gap of 3.91 eV. The Debye temperature ϴ_D increases monotonically up to about 1120 K at 80 GPa when using the calculated elastic constants whereas the desorption temperature decreases from 650 to 0 K by increasing pressure from 0 to about 87 GPa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]