A DFT study on the central-ring doped HBC nanographenes

Nanographenes (NGs) are a segment of graphene whose dangling bonds are saturated with hydrogen atoms, introducing different properties and promising applications. Here we investigate the electronic, thermodynamic, optical, and structural properties of four C36X3Y3H18 NGs (X = B, and Al; and Y = N, and P) based on the density functional theory calculations. It was mainly found that 1) BN-NG is planar molecule and the others are buckybowl-shaped ones, 2) The bowl-to-bowl inversion Gibbs free energies (Delta G(#)) of buckybowl shaped NGs are very huge and the rate constant is very small, hindering the inversion, 3) The relative energetic stability order based on the standard enthalpy of formation (Delta H-f degrees) is as BN > AIN > BP > AlP, which the BN, and AIN doped NGs are stable at room temperature but the BP and AIP doped ones are instable, 4) The electrical conductivity order of magnitude is inverse of that of stability, 5) An exciton binding energy is predicted in the range of 0.57-0.75 eV for the NGs which corresponds to Frenkel exciton type, 6) the NGs are not soluble in organic solvent in agreement with the experimental results and is partially soluble in water solvent with Gibbs free energy of solvation (Delta G(solv)) in the range of -6.1 to -10.1 kcal/mol. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.