Adsorption and sequential thermal release of F2, Cl2, and Br2 molecules by a porous organic cage material (CC3-R): Molecular dynamics and grand-canonical Monte Carlo simulations

The adsorption–desorption behavior of fluorine, chlorine, and bromine molecules onto a crystalline porous organic cage, namely CC3-R was calculated at different temperatures using molecular dynamics (MD) and grand-canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) simulations. Self-diffusion coefficients, radial distribution functions (RDF), and adsorption isotherms were calculated for this purpose. The results show that CC3-R has varied capacities to capture these halogens at ambient and high temperatures, so that the thermal release of fluorine is completed with increasing temperature up to around 70°C and chlorine molecules remain at the CC3-R surface up to 100°C and all bromine molecules are removed from the CC3-R surface at 200°C. We found that bromine self-diffusion was almost independent of temperature between 0 and 100°C in contrast to fluorine and chlorine. Among different diffusion regimes, Knudsen diffusion appears to have an important role in the adsorption of heavy halogens at higher temperatures.