Pt Decorating Effect on CNT Surface Towards Adsorption of SF₆ Decomposed Components

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) based sensors are drawn considerable attentions for gas adsorption and sensing due to their large specific surface area. In this paper, the adsorptions of three SF₆ decomposed components (SO₂F₂, SOF₂ and SO₂) on Pt doped CNT are theoretically studied based on density function theory method. The density of state, frontier molecular orbital theory as well as Mulliken population analysis were considered in order to comprehensively understand the adsorbing processes. Results indicated that Pt-CNT has the best sensitivity to SOF₂ owing to their strong chemisorption, followed by SO₂ and the last one comes to SO₂F₂ due to their weak physisorption. Pt dopant that acts as an activated catalytic additive can effectively improve the adsorption ability to gas molecules through providing several active adsorption sites of CNT. Our calculation results would be meaningful not only to explain the sensing mechanism of CNT but also to suggest advanced SWCNTs based sensing materials to be applied in the field of electrical engineering.