A DFT study of formaldehyde adsorption on functionalized graphene nanoribbons

• Creating defecting the graphene structure by transition metal Ni atoms.
• Formaldehyde sensor based on Ni-decorated grapheme.
• Calculating the sensor capacity.

Density functional theory (DFT) based ab initio calculations were done to monitor the formaldehyde (CHOH) adsorptive behavior on pristine and Ni-decorated graphene sheet. Structural optimization indicates that the formaldehyde molecule is physisorbed on the pristine sheet via partly weak van der Waals attraction having the adsorption energy of about −15.7 kcal/mol. Metal decorated sheet is able to interact with the CHOH molecule, so that single Ni atoms prefer to bind strongly at the bridge site of graphene and each metal atom bound on sheet may adsorb up to four CHOH. The findings also show that the Ni decoration on graphene surface results in some changes in electronic properties of the sheet and its Eg is remained unchanged after adsorption of CHOH molecules. It is noteworthy to say that no bond cleavage was observed for the adsorption of CHOH on Ni-decorated graphene.

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