Theoretical studies of the molecular structures of dinitrotoluenes and their interactions with siloxane surface of clay minerals

Among the many different signature compounds emitted from a landmine in the vapor phase, 2,4-dinitrotoluene (2,4-DNT) is the most common nitroaromatic compound in terms of detecting buried landmines, although it is a byproduct in the synthesis of TNT. 2,4-DNT is used as an ingredient in mining explosives and also prevalent on the soil surface but is somewhat seasonally dependent. The B3LYP hybrid functional was used to obtain the lowest-energy structure of both 2,4 and 2,6-DNT. Increasing basis sets from the 3-21G up to the 6-31++G (d, p) are used to predict structural parameters, vibrational frequencies, IR intensities and Raman activities for the explosives molecules. The calculated energies show that the 2,4-dinitrotoluene isomer is more stable than 2,6-dinitrotoluene isomer due to the lesser levels of steric effects between the nitro groups and the methyl group. The optimized structures were interacted with the siloxane site of clay minerals, using the density functional level of theory and the basis sets used to optimize the geometry of the DNT molecules. The binding energy (E-b) between the optimized molecules and the basal siloxane site surface of clay minerals was calculated at distances in a range between 2.5 to 8.5 Angstrom.