DFT study of SF6 adsorption by Pd-doped hydroxyl-terminal modified Ti3C2Tx MXene

J Mol Model. 2023 Oct 25;29(11):350. doi: 10.1007/s00894-023-05737-8.

Abstract

Context: SF6 gas has a strong greenhouse effect, and how to treat SF6 in an environmentally friendly way has been a hot topic of current research. In this paper, the adsorption behavior of SF6 on the surface of Pd-doped hydroxyl-terminated modified Ti3C2Tx (i.e., Ti3C2(OH)2) was investigated based on the density functional theory using two-dimensional MXene as the catalyst. The structures of different Pd-doped Ti3C2(OH)2 were analyzed and the most structurally stable doped structures were selected as the basis for subsequent calculations. A large number of adsorption configurations were constructed and geometrically optimized, and the adsorption energy, charge transfer, differential charge density, and density of states of the systems were calculated in order to analyze the gas-solid interactions and find the surface active sites; compared with the adsorption performance of undoped Ti3C2(OH)2 on SF6, it was found that Pd doping played a less inhibitory role in the adsorption of SF6 on the Ti3C2(OH)2 surface. The results of this study can provide theoretical support for the use of Pd-doped Ti3C2(OH)2 as a catalyst for the degradation of SF6.

Methods: In this paper, simulations of SF6 adsorption on Ti3C2Tx surfaces are based on density functional theory and are carried out in the Dmol3 module of Material Studio. To better describe the non-uniform electron density of the actual system, the PBE functional in the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) was chosen for the optimization of the structure of the gas-solid interface system and the calculation of the relevant electronic properties, combined with the Grimme dispersion correction in the DFT-D dispersion correction for the electron exchange correlation term. Because both Pd and Ti are transition metal elements, the mode-conserving pseudopotential DNP basis set containing relativistic effects was chosen for the electronic wave function expansion. In this paper, an all-electron model is used for the inner core treatment of gas molecules and a density generalized semi-nuclear pseudopotential DSSP is used for the solid surface treatment.

Keywords: Density flooding; Gas sensors; Pd; SF6; Ti3C2Tx.