The adsorption of cathinone drug on the platinum decorated silicon carbide nanosheets: DFT studies.

Cathinone (CTN), classified as stimulants, is one of the psychoactive drugs. Although the sale of CTN was controlled by international drug laws, it was still sold on the internet, and its overdose caused many deaths worldwide. As chemical sensors, two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials have drawn attention to be used in various biological molecules. In the current study, the sensing characteristics of the intrinsic SiC monolayer (SiCM) and its Pt-decorated state (Pt@SiCM) were scrutinized toward the CTN drug by utilizing density functional theory (DFT) calculations. It was illustrated that the SiCM sensing response to CTN is insignificant (~ 10.6 at 298 K) due to the weak interaction with the adsorption energy of -0.25 eV. After the decoration of Pt on the SiCM, it was adsorbed above a hexagonal ring, which formed an η6-Pt half-sandwich and the adsorption energy was -3.62 eV. It was found that the Pt@SiCM strongly adsorbed CTN and the adsorption energy was -1.60 eV. Therefore, Pt-decoration augmented the SiCM sensing response to CTN from 10.3 to 716.6. The recovery time obtained for the CTN desorption from the Pt@SiCM surface was 12.7 s, which was short. It was concluded that Pt-decoration makes the SiCM a favorable candidate for CTN identification.