Analytical representations of regular-shaped nanostructures for gas storage applications

Authors

  • Wei Xian Lim The University of Adelaide
  • Aaron W. Thornton CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering, Private Bag 33, Clayton South MDC, Victoria 3169.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21914/anziamj.v57i0.5526

Keywords:

gas storage, potential energy, van der Waals potential, nanostructures, building blocks

Abstract

Nanospace governs the dynamics of physical, chemical, material and biological systems, and the facility to model it with analytical formulae provides an essential tool to address some of the worlds’ key problems such as gas purification, separation and storage. This paper aims to provide some analytical models to exploit building blocks representing various geometric shapes that describe nanostructures. In order to formulate the various building blocks, we use the continuous approximation which assumes a uniform distribution of atoms on their surfaces. We then calculate the potential energy of the van der Waals interaction between an atom and the structure to evaluate the location of the atom where the potential energy is at its minimum. We provide applications of the analytical models for some real structures where more than one type of building block is required. doi:10.1017/S1446181115000152

Author Biography

Wei Xian Lim, The University of Adelaide

School of Mathematical Sciences

Published

2015-10-16

Issue

Section

Special Issue on Nanotechnology