NO2 sensing properties of a borazine doped nanographene: A DFT study

Nanographenes are definite segments of graphene whose end atoms are saturated with hydrogens and their properties are different from those of the graphene because of size confinement. Herein, we investigated the structural properties, reactivity and electronic sensitivity of a newly synthesized borazine-like ring doped nanographene (BNG) to NO2 gas by means of density functional theory. We found that the central and peripheral rings of BNG are aromatic, while the middle ones are non-aromatic, revealing that this pattern follows the Clar's sextet rule of aromaticity. Different thermodynamically stable NO2/BNG complexes are predicted, but most of them cannot be formed at room temperature because of the high transition barrier energies. The most favorable complex is that in which one oxygen atom of NO2 molecule is located above the center of B3N3 doped ring with adsorption energy of about -5.1 kcal/mol. It was found that the electronic properties of BNG are highly sensitive to the presence of NO2 molecules so that after the NO2 adsorption, the BNG is converted from a semiconductor to a semimetal compound. Thus, it was concluded that the BNG may be used in the NO2 sensor devices. Also, a short recovery time is predicted for the NO2 desorption process. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.