Ground-State Structure of Quaternary Alloys (SiC)1-x (AlN)x and (SiC)1-x (GaN)x.

Despite III-nitride and silicon carbide being the materials of choice for a wide range of applications, theoretical studies on their quaternary alloys are limited. Here, we report a systematic computational study on the electronic structural properties of (SiC)x (AlN)1-x and (SiC)x (AlN)1-x quaternary alloys, based on state-of-the-art first-principles evolutionary algorithms. Trigonal (SiCAlN, space group P3m1) and orthorhombic (SiCGaN, space group Pmn21) crystal phases were as predicted for x = 0.5. SiCAlN showed relatively weak thermodynamic instability, while that of SiCGaN was slightly elevated, rendering them both dynamically and mechanically stable at ambient pressure. Our calculations revealed that the Pm31 crystal has high elastic constants, (C11~458 GPa and C33~447 GPa), a large bulk modulus (B0~210 GPa), and large Young's modulus (E~364 GPa), and our results suggest that SiCAlN is potentially a hard material, with a Vickers hardness of 21 GPa. Accurate electronic structures of SiCAlN and SiCGaN were calculated using the Tran-Blaha modified Becke-Johnson semi-local exchange potential. Specifically, we found evidence that SiCGaN has a very wide direct bandgap of 3.80 eV, while that of SiCAlN was indirect at 4.6 eV. Finally, for the quaternary alloys, a relatively large optical bandgap bowing of ~3 eV was found for SiCGaN, and a strong optical bandgap bowing of 0.9 eV was found for SiCAlN.

Interlayer adsorption of cationic dye on cationic surfactant-modified and unmodified montmorillonite.

Water pollution by toxic organic dyes is one of the most critical health and environmental problems worldwide. By means of molecular dynamics method, the present work aims to evaluate the applicability of montmorillonite (Mt) modified by hexadecyltrimethylammonium cations (HDTMA+) compared to unmodified Na-Mt for the adsorption of cationic methylene blue (MB) dye. The results showed that the adsorption energy of MB on both HDTMA-Mt and Na-Mt absorbent ranged from - 100 to - 250 kJ/mol, indicating the effectiveness of two types of adsorbents in dye water treatment. The highest adsorption energy was found at w = 50% in each adsorbent system. Adsorption mechanisms of MB depend on molecular orientations, which is influenced by the surfactant and water content. The adsorption mechanism of MB is chemisorption dominated by strong electrostatic interaction between CH3 groups of MB and oxygen atoms of Mt surfaces. Besides, physisorption also plays a minor role in MB orientations. It is found that the existence of cationic surfactants can slightly improve the adsorption capacity of MB only at higher water content through enlarging the interlayer space of Mt and reducing mobility of MB. However, there will be a negative impact on the reduction of adsorption sites for dyes especially at low water content. Our results provide a possible application for swelling clay minerals being a promising adsorbent for dyes-surfactants co-existing wastewater treatment.

Mechanical and Bonding Behaviors Behind the Bending Mechanism of Kaolinite Clay Layers.

The density functional theory-based calculations were performed on stripe models of the single kaolinite layer. The calculations helped to explain why halloysite mineral, a member of the kaolinite group existing in a tubular form, has rolled tubes only in one way. In that form, aluminol octahedral sheet, terminated by surface hydroxyl groups, represents the inner surface of the nanotubes. The bending models with the inner surface formed by the SiO tetrahedral sheet showed significant structural instability with monotonically increasing strain energy as a function of the curvature. In contrast, for the bending models with the octahedral sheet as the inner surface, stabilization energetic minima were found at curvatures of about 10 nm. The calculations were also performed on the individual sheets (tetrahedral and octahedral) of the kaolinite layer to show their contribution to the bending strain. We found that the decrease of the bending energy and the layer stabilization with respect to the planar configuration for curvatures with radii R C > ∼5 nm can be attributed mainly to three factors-(i) better match between octahedral and tetrahedral sheets, (ii) local structural changes of the SiO and AlOH polyhedral units, and (iii) increasing effectivity of hydrogen bonding of the outer surface OH groups.

Assessment of ten DFT methods in predicting structures of sheet silicates: importance of dispersion corrections.

The performance of ten density functional theory (DFT) methods in a prediction of the structure of four clay minerals, in which non-bonding interactions dominate in the layer stacking (dispersive forces in talc and pyrophyllite, and hydrogen bonds in lizardite and kaolinite), is reported. In a set of DFT methods following functionals were included: standard local and semi-local (LDA, PW91, PBE, and RPBE), dispersion corrected (PW91-D2, PBE-D2, RPBE-D2, and vdW-TS), and functionals developed specifically for solids and solid surfaces (PBEsol and AM05). We have shown that the standard DFT functionals fail in the correct prediction of the structural parameters, for which non-bonding interactions are important. The remarkable improvement leading to very good agreement with experimental structures is achieved if the dispersion corrections are included in the DFT calculations. In such cases the relative error for the most sensitive lattice vector c dropped below 1%. Very good performance was also observed for both DFT functionals developed for solids. Especially, the results achieved with the PBEsol are qualitatively similar to those with DFT-D2.

Understanding of bonding and mechanical characteristics of cementitious mineral tobermorite from first principles.

This paper reports density functional theory study of the structural and mechanical properties of tobermorite mineral (9 Å phase) as one of the main component of cementitious materials in a concrete chemistry. Calculated bulk modulus and elastic constants reflect a relatively high resistance of the tobermorite structure with respect to external isostatic compression. Moreover, the elastic constants proved the anisotropic character of the tobermorite structure. The directions parallel to the axb plane are more resistant to the compression than the perpendicular direction. The largest contribution to this resistance comes from the "dreierketten" silicate chains. The bonding analysis linked macroscopic mechanical properties and the atomic structure of the tobermorite. It was found that polar covalent Si-O bonds are stiffer than iono-covalent Ca-O bonds. The SiO(4) tetrahedra are resistant with respect to the compression and the effect of external pressure is reflected by the large mutual tilting of these tetrahedra as it is shown by changes of the Si-O-Si bridging angles. Polyhedra with the seven-fold coordinated Ca(2+) cations undergo large structural changes. Especially, axial Ca-O bonds perpendicular to the axb plane are significantly shortened. Besides, it was shown that structural parameters, more or less in parallel orientation to the axb plane, are mainly responsible for the high resistance of the tobermorite structure to external pressure. The main mechanism of a dissipation of energy entered to the structure through the compression is proceeded by the tilting of the tetrahedra of the silicate chains and by large shortening of the axial Ca-O distances.