First-principles investigation of interaction between the atomic oxygen species and carbon nanostructures

Abstract

• The following trends in the value of adsorption energies of triplet oxygen atoms on the carbon nanostructures were identified: diamond-like structures (sp 3 ) < graphene-like structures (sp 2 ) < fullerenes & nanotubes (sp 2 , pentagons, high curvature). • For the graphene flake and fullerene structures there are common precursors for carbon desorption in the form of CO/CO 2 molecules: (1) ether-ether-epoxy precursor and (2) epoxy-ether-epoxy. • Etching of sp 3 hybridized carbon structures can proceed faster than etching of sp 2 structures. • For graphene structure, unzipping process is more favorable than reduction process at lower temperatures. In this work we perform a systematic theoretical study of oxidation process of different carbon nanomaterials by atomic oxygen. In order to understand the atomistic mechanism of interaction between atomic oxygen and carbon nanostructures and to explain experimental results on their oxygen treatment, first-principles calculations were performed. Influence of spin state of the atomic oxygen on its interaction with different carbon nanostructures (finite size graphene flake, carbon nanotube, fullerene, diamondoid) was investigated. We found that the structure and stability of the adsorption complexes are determined by the oxygen spin state and depend on the carbon nanostructure morphology and hybridization. The atomistic mechanisms of chemical transformations driven by high local oxygen coverage, such as CO/CO 2 desorption and graphene unzipping, were investigated. Calculated barriers of CO 2 desorption allow to explain experimental data on thermal reduction of the oxidized carbon structures. In case of graphene, competition between channels resulting in CO 2 desorption and plane unzipping was observed. We found that for the temperatures ~400 K and lower unzipping process is favorable, since CO 2 desorption precursor formation proceeds through higher activation barrier (1.3 eV) and requires temperatures above 450 K.