Ammonia adsorption on graphene and graphene oxide: a first-principles study

Abstract

Motivated by the recent realization of graphene sensor to detect gas molecules that are harmful to the environment, the ammonia adsorption on graphene or graphene oxide (GO) was investigated using first-principles calculation. The optimal adsorption and orientation of the NH₃ molecules on the graphene surfaces were determined, and the adsorption energies (E_b) as well as the Mulliken charge transfers of NH₃ were calculated. The E_b for the graphene are small and seem to be independent of the sites and orientations. The surface epoxy or hydroxyl groups can promote the adsorption of NH₃ on the GO; the enhancement of the E_b for the hydroxyl groups is greater than that for the epoxy groups on the surface. The charge transfers from the molecule to the surfaces also exhibit the same trend. The Brönsted acid sites and Lewis acid sites could stably exist on the GO with surface hydroxyl groups and on the basal, respectively.

Keywords

graphene oxide / first-principles calculations / NH₃ adsorption

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Acknowledgements

Financial support from the National High-Tech Research and the Development (863) Program of China (Grant Nos. 2010AA065002, 2012AA062506) is gratefully acknowledged.

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg