The effect of curvature of Li-doped polycyclic hydrocarbon on its interaction energy with H2 and H2O: DF-SAPT (DFT) calculation

In this work, the interaction of three Li⁺-doped polycyclic hydrocarbons (Li⁺-DPH) with H₂ and H₂O was calculated to investigate the effect of curvature of substrate on the interaction energy (E_int). For this purpose, the E_int and its decomposed energy components (electrostatic (E_elec), exchange (E_exch), induction (E_ind), and dispersion energy (E_disp)) were calculated using DF-SAPT (DFT) methodology for the selected systems (Li⁺-(3,3) carbon nanotube (Li⁺-CNT33), Li⁺-(6,6) carbon nanotube (Li⁺-CNT66), and Li⁺-graphene). According to the results, E_int does not change significantly with curvature for the interaction between both H₂ and H₂O gases and the selected Li⁺-DPH. Since the variation of the E_int with the curvature of Li⁺-DPH is not significant, the selection of a planar Li⁺-DPH is a trustworthy model to develop a general force field for describing the interaction between a Li⁺-DPH and adsorbed gases. The results reveal that, in the case of the H₂, the components E_elect, E_exch, E_ind, and E_disp have shown a decreasing trend with Li⁺-DPH’s curvature decrement. However, for the H₂O, E_elect, E_exch, and E_ind decrease from the Li⁺-CNT33 to the Li⁺-CNT66 while they increase from the Li⁺-CNT66 to the Li⁺-graphene. In this case, the E_disp increases with a decrease of the curvature of Li⁺-DPH. Finally, it can be seen that although the variation of the E_int with the curvature of Li⁺-DPH is not significant, the variation trend of the interaction energy components and the amount of variation depend on the gas molecule and in some cases are not negligible.