Reactivity of boron- and nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes functionalized by (Pt, Eu) atoms toward O2 and CO: A density functional study

The adsorption behavior and electronic properties of CO and O2 molecules at the supported Pt and Eu atoms on (5,5) armchair SWCNT have been systematically investigated within density functional theory (DFT). Fundamental aspects such as adsorption energy, natural bond orbital (NBO), charge transfer, frontier orbitals and the projected density of states (PDOS) are elucidated to analyze the adsorption properties of CO and O2 molecules. The results reveal that B- and N-doping CNTs can enhance the binding strength and catalytic activity of Pt (Eu) anchored on the doped-CNT, where boron-doping is more effective. The electronic structures of supported metal are strongly influenced by the presence of gases. After adsorption of CO and O2, the changes in binding energy, charge transfer and conductance may lead to the different response in the metal-doped CNT-based sensors. It is expected that these results could provide helpful information for the design and fabrication of the CO and O2 sensing devices. The high catalytic activity of Pt supported at doped-CNT toward the interaction with CO and O2 may be attributed to the electronic resonance particularly among Pt-5d, CO-2π* and O2-2π* antibonding orbitals. In contrast to the supported Eu at doped-CNT, the Eu atom becomes more positively charged, which leads to weaken the CO adsorption and promote the O2 adsorption, consequently enhancing the activity for CO oxidation and alleviating the CO poisoning of the europium catalysts. A notable orbital hybridization and electrostatic interaction between these two species in adsorption process being an evidence of strong interaction. The electronic structure of O2 adsorbed on Eu-doped CNT resembles that of O2−, therefore the transferred charge weakens the O–O bonds and facilitates the dissociation process, which is the precondition for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR).