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Solvent mediated interactions close to fluid-fluid phase separation: microscopic treatment of bridging in a soft-core fluid

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posted on 2014-10-10, 13:47 authored by Andrew ArcherAndrew Archer, Robert Evans, Roland Roth, M. Oettel
Using density functional theory we calculate the density profiles of a binary solvent adsorbed around a pair of big solute particles. All species interact via repulsive Gaussian potentials. The solvent exhibits fluid-fluid phase separation, and for thermodynamic states near to coexistence the big particles can be surrounded by a thick adsorbed "wetting" film of the coexisting solvent phase. On reducing the separation between the two big particles we find there can be a "bridging" transition as the wetting films join to form a fluid bridge. The effective (solvent mediated) potential between the two big particles becomes long ranged and strongly attractive in the bridged configuration. Within our mean-field treatment the bridging transition results in a discontinuity in the solvent mediated force. We demonstrate that accounting for the phenomenon of bridging requires the presence of a nonzero bridge function in the correlations between the solute particles when our model fluid is described within a full mixture theory based upon the Ornstein-Zernike equations.

Funding

A.J.A. is grateful for the support of EPSRC under Grant No. GR/S28631/01

History

School

  • Science

Department

  • Mathematical Sciences

Published in

Journal of Chemical Physics

Volume

122

Issue

8

Citation

ARCHER, A.J. ... et al, 2005. Solvent mediated interactions close to fluid-fluid phase separation: microscopic treatment of bridging in a soft-core fluid. Journal of Chemical Physics, 122 (8), 084513.

Publisher

© American Institute of Physics

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publication date

2005

Notes

Copyright 2005 American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Journal of Chemical Physics, 2005, 122 (8), 084513 and may be found at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.1855878

ISSN

0021-9606

Language

  • en

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