Modeling the adsorption of short alkanes in the zeolite SSZ-13 using van der Waals DFT exchange correlation functionals: Understanding the advantages and limitations of such functionals

The inclusion of non-local interactions is one of the large challenges in density functional theory. Very promising methods are the vdW-DF2 and BEEF-vdW functionals, which combine a semi-local approximation for exchange interactions and a non-local correlation expression. In this work we apply those functionals to model the adsorption of short alkanes in the zeolite SSZ-13. Even though results for energetics are improved with respect to other vdW-DF based methods, we still find a comparatively large error compared to high-level calculations. These errors result from approximations in the determination of the dielectric function and of the van der Waals kernel. The insights presented in this work will help to understand the performance not only of vdW-DF2 and BEEF-vdW, but all vdW-DF based functionals in various chemically or physically important systems. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.