Density functional theory calculations were used in the theoretical investigation of the adsorption properties of sumanene towards molecules considered as common air pollutants: CO, CO₂ and NH₃. The insignificant perturbation of sumanene after adsorption and the adsorption energies obtained indicate a physisorption mechanism. It was shown that, contrary to carbon nanotubes, sumanene is able to adsorb CO molecules, and that adsorption of CO₂ by sumanene is stronger than adsorption of CO₂ by C₆₀. To better understand the adsorption characteristics of sumanene, density of states and natural bond order analyses were performed, which showed that chemical interactions exist and that these are more important mostly on the convex side. Better adsorption properties were obtained for the concave side as adsorption is dictated by physisorption mechanisms due to the specific bowl-shaped geometry of sumanene, because of which more negative charge is located precisely on the concave side. Molecular electrostatic potential surfaces were also used in order to better locate the adsorption sites and gain additional details about adsorption.

We investigated the effects of substitution on the sumanene benzylic CH2 groups with BH and NH groups using density functional theory computations. Our study shows that various properties of sumanene could be finely tuned for the application in the areas closely related to the materials science. Structural properties are significantly altered with such modifications and other properties as well. Charge distributions were evaluated through natural population analysis (NPA), while stability of investigated structures was investigated using quantum molecular descriptors. Using molecular orbital analysis further insight into the effects of substitution was obtained. Potential of sumanene as a candidate for application in the field of organic electronics is assessed through calculations of exciton binding energy. Non-linear optical properties of investigated structures were investigated using the first hyperpolarizability tensor. Special attention was paid to the aromaticity of sumanene. This property was evaluated employing NICS parameter while for detailed study of obtained results we used NBO and NBOdel analysis.

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