Adsorption of Organic Molecules on Onion-Like-Carbons: Insights on the Formation of Interstellar Hydrocarbons

Abstract

Using atomistic simulations, we characterize the adsorption process of organic molecules on carbon nanoparticles, both of which have been reported to be abundant in the interstellar medium (ISM). It is found that the aromatic organics are adsorbed more readily than the aliphatic ones. This selectivity would favor the formation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) or fullerene-like structures in the ISM due to structural similarity. It is also observed in our simulations that the molecules form a monolayer over the nanoparticle surface before stacking up in aggregates. This suggests a possible layer-by-layer formation process of onion-like nanostructures in the ISM. These findings reveal the possible role of carbon nanoparticles as selective catalysts that could provide reaction substrates for the formation of interstellar PAHs, high-fullerenes and soots from gas-phase molecules.

18 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (15)

• Evolution of Interstellar Medium, Star Formation, and Accretion at High Redshift
• Detection of a branched alkyl molecule in the interstellar medium: iso-propyl cyanide
• Binding energies: new values and impact on the efficiency of chemical desorption
• Formation of fullerenes in H-containing Planetary Nebulae
• On the Rapid Collapse and Evolution of Molecular Clouds
• Seeds Of Life In Space (SOLIS): The organic composition diversity at 300--1000 au scale in Solar-type star forming regions
• An Approach to Estimate the Binding energy of Interstellar Species
• Destruction of Refractory Carbon in Protoplanetary Disks
• Systematic Theoretical Study on the Interstellar Carbon Chain Molecules
• Electrostatic deflections of cantilevered metallic carbon nanotubes via charge-dipole model
• Low-temperature Condensation of Carbon
• Electrostatic deflections of cantilevered semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes
• Observational Evidence Linking Interstellar UV Absorption to PAH Molecules
• Evolution of Morphological and Physical Properties of Laboratory Interstellar Organic Residues with Ultraviolet Irradiation
• On Graphene in the Interstellar Medium

Cited by in corpus (18)

• Machine-learning prediction of infrared spectra of interstellar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
• Formation of interstellar complex polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: Insights from molecular dynamics simulations of dehydrogenated benzene
• How Much Graphene in Space?
• Chirality-Dependent Motion Transmission between Aligned Carbon Nanotubes
• Selective Conduction of Organic Molecules via Free-Standing Graphene
• Machine-learning identified molecular fragments responsible for infrared emission features of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
• Chirality-Selective Transport of Benzene Molecules on Carbon Nanotubes
• Machine Learning interpretation of the correlation between infrared emission features of interstellar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
• On Carbon Nanotubes in the Interstellar Medium
• Evolution of Fullerenes in Circumstellar Envelopes by Carbon Condensation: Insights from Reactive Molecular Dynamics Simulations
• Size effect on the spontaneous coalescence of nanowires
• Dramatic effect of a transverse electric field on frictional properties of graphene
• Density Functional Theory Calculations on the Interstellar Formation of Biomolecules
• Catalytic role of HI in the interstellar synthesis of complex organic molecule
• Gear Junctions between Chiral Boron Nitride Nanotubes
• Trapping molecules in a covalent graphene-nanotube hybrid
• Dynamics and Structural Transformations of Carbon Onion-Like under High-Velocity Impacts
• Low-Temperature Friction of Suspended Graphene: Negative friction?