Applied Chemical Engineering

Nanosensor of gallium nitride for methanol adsorption for producing hydrogen: A computational chemistry study

Fatemeh Mollaamin

Department of Food Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Kastamonu University; Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Kastamonu University

Majid Monajjemi

Department of Chemical Engineering, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24294/ace.v6i2.2199

Keywords: CH3O@GaN, CH3O@C–GaN, H2, DFT, Langmuir adsorption

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Abstract

The selective hydrogen production from methanol on the graphitic-like gallium nitride (GaN) and carbon doped gallium nitride (C–GaN) nanosheets has been challenged using the density functional theory (DFT) method. In this work, we report that GaN and C-doped GaN can catalyze the direct producing hydrogen (H₂) of methanol (CH₃OH) through Langmuir adsorption. The changes of charge density have shown a more important charge transfer for C-doped GaN compared to GaN which act both as the electron acceptor while CH₃OH molecules in water act as the stronger electron donors through adsorption on the GaN and C-doped GaN surfaces. The adsorption of CH₃OH molecules on the GaN and C-doped GaN surfaces represented spin polarization in the GaN and C-doped GaN which can be employed as thee magnetic sensors for running the reaction of H₂ producing. The partial electron density states based on “PDOS” graphs have explained that the CH₃OH states in both of GaN and C-doped GaN nanosheets, respectively, have more conduction bands between −5 eV to −10 eV. The simulated distribution functions of CH₃O@GaN and CH₃O@C–GaN complexes exhibits that the bond lengths of O–Ga in CH₃O–GaN complex is 1.99 Å and O–C in CH₃O–C–GaN complex is 1.43 Å. Besides, the plot for electric potential versus atomic charge has been shown around carbon doping of the GaN which presents the electron accepting characteristics of this element via the electron donor of oxygen atom of hydroxyl group in CH₃OH with linear relation coefficient of R² = 0.9948. GaN and C–GaN nanosheets seem to have enough efficiency for adsorption CH₃OH molecules through charge transfer from oxygen to the gallium and carbon elements due to intra-atomic and interatomic interactions.

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