Pressure-induced band gap energy increase in crystalline lactose

Lactose is widely used in agri-food and pharma industries. New materials that can be obtained from renewable sources are currently being sought. I have studied the effect of hydrostatic pressure on structural properties of currently known forms of crystalline lactose within the framework of density functional theory with van der Waals interactions. The computed parameters have good agreement with experimental data. The effect of mechanical deformations on electron structure of crystalline lactose was also studied. Compression of the crystal leads to the band gap increase. The analysis of partial density of states of lactose crystals was performed. The band gap of different forms of crystalline lactose was also computed using the quasiparticle G0W0 approximation.