Chlorofluorocarbons adsorption structures and energetic over faujasite type zeolites—a first principle study

Adsorption of ozone depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) over zeolite is of major global environmental concern. The current communication describes first-principle calculation performed on faujasite models to investigate the nature of CFCs including fluoro, chlorofluoro and hydrofluoro/chloro carbons (CF₄, CF₃Cl, CF₂Cl₂, CFCl₃, CHF₃, CHCl₃) adsorption. Experimentally it is observed that separation of halocarbons are possible using Na–Y, though the cause is unknown. Reactivity index within the helm of Hard Soft Acid Base (HSAB) principle was used to monitor the activity of the interacting CFCs using Density Functional Theory (DFT) to propose a qualitative order. The importance of both H-bonding and cation–F/Cl interactions in determining the low-energy sorption sites were monitored and rationalized. The host guest interactions show a distinctive difference between the adsorption phenomenon between H–Y and Na–Y and as well for Cl and F. It is observed that Cl has more favorable interaction with hydrogen of H–Y compared to Na–Y and for F the situation is just reversed. To validate this trend periodic optimization calculations were performed. The interaction energy as obtained matches well with the reactivity index order resulted from cluster calculations. This study is a combination of DFT and periodic calculation to rationalize the electronic phenomenon of the interaction process.