Adsorption behavior of hydrogen sulfide in the channels of Li-ABW zeolite: A study using density functional theory

H2S is a highly toxic, flammable gas that poses risks to health, the environment, and industrial infrastructure. Zeolites, with their high porosity, offer a promising solution for its removal. This study employs density functional theory (DFT) to investigate the adsorption behavior of H2S within the Li-ABW zeolite framework, focusing on the synergistic effect of co-adsorbed water molecules. Six distinct systems were modeled: empty Li-ABW zeolite, half and full filled Li-ABW with H2O or H2S molecules, and equally filled zeolite with H2S and H2O molecules. Detailed analysis of geometric, energetic, and electronic properties reveals that the presence of water significantly enhances H2S adsorption in Li-ABW. Increased bond lengths between H2S and the zeolite framework suggest possible dissociative adsorption, while weakened H2S-zeolite interaction compared to H2O-zeolite interaction indicates facile H2S desorption. Furthermore, charge transfer analysis and HOMO/LUMO plots highlight stronger interactions and a more balanced electron distribution in the co-adsorbed system. Interestingly, the presence of water minimizes structural deformations of the zeolite framework while facilitating the formation of additional hydrogen bonds, potentially further promoting H2S desorption through water extraction. These findings demonstrate that Li-ABW zeolite, particularly in conjunction with water molecules, exhibits remarkable potential for efficient and selective H2S adsorption, offering promising avenues for practical applications in gas sweetening and industrial gas purification. In order to realize this potential, further investigation into the effects of solvents and cation exchange is necessary, which are outlined for future research.

Statistical analysis of the performance of a variety of first-principles schemes for accurate prediction of binary semiconductor band gaps

Standard density functional theory (DFT) approximations tend to strongly underestimate band gaps, while the more accurate GW and hybrid functionals are much more computationally demanding and unsuitable for high-throughput screening. In this work, we have performed an extensive benchmark of several approximations with different computational complexity [G0W0@PBEsol, HSE06, PBEsol, modified Becke-Johnson potential (mBJ), DFT-1/2, and ACBN0] to evaluate and compare their performance in predicting the bandgap of semiconductors. The benchmark is based on 114 binary semiconductors of different compositions and crystal structures, for about half of which experimental band gaps are known. Surprisingly, we find that, compared with G0W0@PBEsol, which exhibits a noticeable underestimation of the band gaps by about 14%, the much computationally cheaper pseudohybrid ACBN0 functional shows a competitive performance in reproducing the experimental data. The mBJ functional also performs well relative to the experiment, even slightly better than G0W0@PBEsol in terms of mean absolute (percentage) error. The HSE06 and DFT-1/2 schemes perform overall worse than ACBN0 and mBJ schemes but much better than PBEsol. Comparing the calculated band gaps on the whole dataset (including the samples with no experimental bandgap), we find that HSE06 and mBJ have excellent agreement with respect to the reference G0W0@PBEsol band gaps. The linear and monotonic correlations between the selected theoretical schemes and experiment are analyzed in terms of the Pearson and Kendall rank coefficients. Our findings strongly suggest the ACBN0 and mBJ methods as very efficient replacements for the costly G0W0 scheme in high-throughput screening of the semiconductor band gaps.

Prediction of novel two-dimensional Dirac nodal line semimetals in Al2B2 and AlB4 monolayers

Topological semimetal phases in two-dimensional (2D) materials have gained widespread interest due to their potential applications in novel nanoscale devices. Despite the growing number of studies on 2D topological nodal lines (NLs), candidates with significant topological features that combine nontrivial topological semimetal phase with superconductivity are still rare. Herein, we predict Al₂B₂ and AlB₄ monolayers as new 2D nonmagnetic Dirac nodal line semimetals with several novel features. Our extensive electronic structure calculations combined with analytical studies reveal that, in addition to multiple Dirac points, these 2D configurations host various highly dispersed NLs around the Fermi level, all of which are semimetal states protected by time-reversal and in-plane mirror symmetries. The most intriguing NL in Al₂B₂ encloses the K point and crosses the Fermi level, showing a considerable dispersion and thus providing a fresh playground to explore exotic properties in dispersive Dirac nodal lines. More strikingly, for the AlB₄ monolayer, we provide the first evidence for a set of 2D nonmagnetic open type-II NLs coexisting with superconductivity at a rather high transition temperature. The coexistence of superconductivity and nontrivial band topology in AlB₄ not only makes it a promising material to exhibit novel topological superconducting phases, but also a rather large energy dispersion of type-II nodal lines in this configuration may offer a platform for the realization of novel topological features in the 2D limit.

First-principles study of ring to cage structural crossover in small ZnO clusters

Density functional, full-potential computations are performed to study the origin and consequences of the ring to cage structural crossover in (ZnO)(n) (n = 2-16) clusters. The origin of this structural crossover, which is found to occur at n = 10, is studied by investigating the behavior of the Zn-O-Zn bond angle, the Zn-O bond strength, and the number of bonds in the systems. It is argued that 12 is the lowest magic number of ZnO clusters in the ground state, while finite temperature vibrational excitations enhance the relative stability of the (ZnO)(9) cluster to make it a magic system at temperatures above about 170 K. The obtained electronic structure of the clusters before and after applying the many-body GW corrections evidence a size-induced redshift originating from the ring to cage structural crossover in the system. The behavior of the electron density bond points of the clusters along with the extrapolated cluster binding energy at very large sizes may indicate the existence of a metastable structure for large ZnO nanostructures, different from the bulk ZnO structure.

Half-metallicity at the Heusler alloy Co(2)Cr(0.5)Fe(0.5)Al(001) surface and its interface with GaAs(001)

Electronic and magnetic properties of the Heusler alloy Co(2)Cr(0.5)Fe(0.5)Al(001) surfaces and its interfaces with GaAs(001) are studied within the framework of density functional theory by using the plane-wave pseudopotential approach. The phase diagram obtained by ab initio atomistic thermodynamics shows that the CrAl surface is the most stable (001) termination of this Heusler alloy. We discuss that, at the ideal surfaces and interfaces with GaAs, half-metallicity of the alloy is lost, although the CrAl surface keeps high spin polarization. The energy band profile of the stable interface is investigated and a negative p Schottky barrier of -0.78 eV is obtained for this system.

Preserving the half-metallicity at the Heusler alloy Co2MnSi(001) surface: a density functional theory study

We have studied the stability, the electronic, and the magnetic properties of Co2MnSi(001) thin films for 15 different terminations using density functional theory calculations. The phase diagram obtained by ab initio atomistic thermodynamics shows that in practice the MnSi, pure Mn, or pure Si terminated surfaces can be stabilized under suitable conditions. Analyzing the surface band structure, we find that the pure Mn termination, due to its strong surface-subsurface coupling, preserves the half-metallicity of the system, while surface states appear for the other terminations.