Interaction of positional isomers of dimethylbenzene with graphite

Abstract

The optimized geometries and interaction energies of the intermolecular heterodimers of coronene with o-, m-, and p-dimethylbenzenes (xylenes) calculated by DFT in the PBE0 and B97D functionals were compared. The applicability of coronene as a model for qualitative assessment of the interaction of mononuclear aromatic compounds with the graphite surface was demonstrated. The necessity of including long-range dispersion interactions in DFT calculations of the dimerization energies of aromatic systems was shown. The sorption enthalpies of p- and m-xylenes were shown to be almost equal irrespective of the conditions of the chromatographic experiment. The preferred sorption of p- over m-xylene on graphite is solely due to the entropy factor.