Hydrogen reducing hot iron oxide powder

[Theorγ]

Hydrogen gas is passed over hot iron (II) oxide powder.

My initial answer was that there was going to be no reaction because of the fact that H₂ is less active than Fe:

$$H_{2} + FeO \rightarrow No Reaction$$

Then, I looked over the web to find the answer to this but encountered two different ones. The first one complies with the rule for the activity series. However, I found this answer to be contradicting with mines since Fe is more active than H₂:

$$H_{2} + FeO \rightarrow Fe + H_{2}O$$

The other answer I found was the following, which I have no idea how they got:

$$H_{2} + FeO \rightarrow Fe + H_{3}O^{+}$$

Which of these equations is the the right one for the problem?

 

[DDTea]

The third reaction is only going to occur in acidic, aqueous solution (since it's the hydronium ion), so that's not going to happen here.

I would calculate deltaG for this reaction to see if it's spontaneous. The entropy term,
$$T \Delta S$$
has a temperature dependence, so above a certain temperature, the reaction may be spontaneous.

However, since the problem specifies "hot iron (II) oxide," my hunch would be that the reaction does occur.

 

[Borek]

Note that you are removing produced water - it is being taken out by the gas stream. That shifts equilibrium to the right.