No abstract

This work aims to efficiently capture CO2 on two-dimensional (2D) nanostructures for effective cleaning of our atmosphere and purification of exhausts coming from fuel engines. Here, we have performed extensive first principles calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) to investigate the interaction of CO2 on a recently synthesized ZnO monolayer (ZnO-ML) in its pure, defected and functionalized form. A series of rigorous calculations yielded the most preferential binding configurations of the CO2 gas molecule on a ZnO-ML. It is observed that the substitution of one oxygen atom with boron, carbon and nitrogen on the ZnO monolayer resulted into enhanced CO2 adsorption. Our calculations show an enriched adsorption of CO2 on the ZnO-ML when substituting with foreign atoms like B, C and N. The improved adsorption energy of CO2 on ZnO suggests the ZnO-ML could be a promising candidate for future CO2 capture.

Density functional theory (DFT) level calculations were performed to study the interaction of hydrogenated graphene (CH) monolayer towards methane (CH4) gas molecules. The structural, electronic and gas sensing properties of pure, defected and light metal-doped CH monolayer were investigated. For the pristine CH, the estimated binding energy of CH4 fell short of the desired physisorption range and limit its gas sensing application at ambient conditions. However, upon crafting defects on pure CH layer by introducing hydrogen vacancies, a sharp increase in adsorption energies were observed when the CH4 molecules approached the defected sites of CH. Further, the effect of metal doping was studied by uniformly distributing light metal adatoms on CH monolayer which significantly enhanced the CH4 adsorption. To have better accuracy in calculating adsorption energies, we have incorporated van der Waals type corrections to our calculations for these weakly interacting systems.

First-principles electronic structure calculations were carried out on hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) sheets functionalized with small molecules, such as OLi, ONa, and Li F, to study their hydrogen (H ) storage properties. We found that OLi and ONa strongly adsorb on h-BN sheets with reasonably large inter-adsorbent separations, which is desirable for H storage. Ab initio molecular dynamics (MD) simulations further confirmed the structural stability of OLi-BN and ONa-BN systems at 400 K. On the other hand, Li F molecules form clusters over the surface of h-BN at higher temperatures. We performed a Bader charge investigation to explore the nature of binding between the functionalized molecules and h-BN sheets. The density of states (DOS) revealed that functionalized h-BN sheets become metallic with two-sided coverage of each type of molecules. Hydrogenation of OLi-BN and ONa-BN revealed that the functionalized systems adsorb multiple H molecules around the Li and Na atoms, with H adsorption energies ranging from 0.20 to 0.28 eV, which is desirable for an efficient H storage material.