A weighted test-area method for calculating surface tension

Structure and Interfacial Tension of a Hard-Rod Fluid in Planar Confinement

The structural properties and interfacial tension of a fluid of rodlike hard-spherocylinder particles in contact with hard structureless flat walls are studied by means of Monte Carlo simulation. The calculated surface tension between the rod fluid and the substrate is characterized by a nonmonotonic trend as a function of the bulk concentration (density) over the range of isotropic bulk concentrations. As suggested by earlier theoretical studies, a surface-ordering scenario is confirmed by our simulations: the local orientational order close to the wall changes from uniaxial to biaxial nematic when the bulk concentration reaches about 85% of the value at the onset of the isotropic-nematic phase transition. The surface ordering coincides with a wetting transition whereby the hard wall is wetted by a nematic film. Accurate values of the fluid-solid surface tension, the adsorption, and the average particle-wall contact distance are reported (over a broad range of densities into the dense nematic region for the first time), which can serve as a useful benchmark for future theoretical and experimental studies on confined rod fluids. The simulation data are supplemented with predictions from second-virial density functional theory, which are in good qualitative agreement with the simulation results.

Vapour–liquid interfacial properties of square-well chains from density functional theory and Monte Carlo simulation

Vapour–liquid surface tension for tangent (open symbols) and vibrating (filled symbols) square-well chains.

Origin of interfacial nanoscopic gaseous domains and formation of dense gas layer at hydrophobic solid-water interface

Interfacial gas enrichment (IGE) covering the entire area of hydrophobic solid-water interface has recently been detected by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and hypothesized to be responsible for the unexpected stability and anomalous contact angle of gaseous nanobubbles and the significant change from DLVO to non-DLVO forces. In this paper, we provide further proof of the existence of IGE in the form of a dense gas layer (DGL) by molecular dynamic simulation. Nitrogen gas adsorption at the water-graphite interface is investigated using molecular dynamic simulation at 300 K and 1 atm normal pressure. The results show that a DGL with a density equivalent to a gas at pressure of 500 atm is formed and equilibrated with a normal pressure of 1 atm. By varying the number of gas molecules in the system, we observe several types of dense gas domains: aggregates, cylindrical caps, and DGLs. Spherical cap gas domains form during the simulation but are unstable and always revert to another type of gas domain. Furthermore, the calculated surface potential of the DGL-water interface, -17.5 mV, is significantly closer to 0 than the surface potential, -65 mV, of normal gas bubble-water interface. This result supports our previously stated hypothesis that the change in surface potential causes the switch from repulsion to attraction for an AFM tip when the graphite surface is covered by an IGE layer. The change in surface potential comes from the structure change of water molecules at the DGL-water interface as compared with the normal gas-water interface. In addition, the contact angle of the cylindrical cap high density nitrogen gas domains is 141°. This contact angle is far greater than 85° observed for water on graphite at ambient conditions and much closer to the 150° contact angle observed for nanobubbles in experiments.