Theoretical study on interaction of hydrogen with single-walled boron nitride nanotubes. II. Collision, storage, and adsorption

Collision and adsorption of hydrogen with high incident kinetic energies on a single-walled boron nitride (BN) nanotube have been investigated. Molecular-dynamics (MD) simulations indicate that at incident energies below 14 eV hydrogen bounces off the BN nanotube wall. On the other hand, at incident energies between 14 and 22 eV each hydrogen molecule is dissociated at the exterior wall to form two hydrogen atoms, but only one of them goes through the wall. However, at the incident energies between 23 and 26 eV all of the hydrogen atoms dissociated at the exterior wall are found to be capable of going inside the nanotube and then to recombine to form hydrogen molecules inside the nanotube. Consequently, it is determined that hydrogen should have the incident energy > 22 eV to go inside the nanotube. On the other hand, we find that the collisions using the incident energies > 26 eV could result in damaging the nanotube structures. In addition our MD simulations find that hydrogen atoms dissociated at the wall cannot bind to either boron or nitrogen atoms in the interior wall of the nanotube. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.