First-order layering and critical wetting transitions in nonadditive hard-sphere mixtures

Nonadditivities of the Particle Sizes Hidden in Model Pair Potentials and Their Effects on Physical Adsorptions

It is important to understand the mechanism of colloidal particle assembly near a substrate for development of drug delivery systems, micro-/nanorobots, batteries, heterogeneous catalysts, paints, and cosmetics. Understanding the mechanism is also important for crystallization of the colloidal particles and proteins. In this study, we calculated the physical adsorption of colloidal particles on a flat wall mainly using the integral equation theory, wherein small and large colloidal particles were employed. In the calculation system, like-charged electric double-layer potentials were used as pair potentials. In some cases, it was found that the small particles are more easily adsorbed. This result is unusual from the viewpoint of the Asakura-Oosawa theory, and we call it a "reversal phenomenon". Theoretical analysis revealed that the reversal phenomenon originates from the nonadditivities of the particle sizes. Using the knowledge obtained from this study, we invented a method to analyze the size nonadditivity hidden in model pair potentials. The method will be useful for confirmation of various simulation results regarding the adsorption and development of force fields for colloidal particles, proteins, and solutes.

Multicomponent fluid of nonadditive hard spheres near a wall

A recently proposed rational-function approximation [Phys. Rev. E 84, 041201 (2011)] for the structural properties of nonadditive hard spheres is applied to evaluate analytically (in Laplace space) the local density profiles of multicomponent nonadditive hard-sphere mixtures near a planar nonadditive hard wall. The theory is assessed by comparison with NVT Monte Carlo simulations of binary mixtures with a size ratio 1:3 in three possible scenarios: a mixture with either positive or negative nonadditivity near an additive wall, an additive mixture with a nonadditive wall, and a nonadditive mixture with a nonadditive wall. It is observed that, while the theory tends to underestimate the local densities at contact (especially in the case of the big spheres) it captures very well the initial decay of the densities with increasing separation from the wall and the subsequent oscillations.

Nonadditive penetrable mixtures in nanopores: surface-induced population inversion

We investigate the surface-induced population inversion of the nonadditive penetrable mixtures which exhibits the fluid-fluid demixing transition of the bulk system due to the confinement effect. The result shows that the population inversions are strongly affected by the extra repulsion between unlike species, the mole fraction of species, the width of nanopores, and the nonadditive walls. The extra repulsion between unlike species in a confined system increases the contact density of both species at the wall and promotes the population inversion in nanopores. The population inversion is the typical shift first-order fluid-fluid demixing transition due to the confinement effect in nanopores. The population inversions are only observed in nanopores with finite widths. The population inversion line is shifted toward a higher fluid density with decreasing width of the nanopores and lies slightly in lower density compared with the coexistence curves of the bulk system. The nonadditive wall for the big particles leads to the population inversion in lower density compared with that of the nonadditive wall for the small particles. The population inversion line is terminated at a lower mole fraction.

Radial distribution functions of non-additive hard sphere mixtures via Percus' test particle route

Using fundamental density functional theory we calculate the partial radial distribution functions, g(ij)(r), of a binary non-additive hard sphere mixture using either Percus' test particle approach or inversion of the analytic structure factor obtained via the Ornstein-Zernike route. We find good agreement between the theoretical results and Monte Carlo simulation data for both positive and moderate negative non-additivities. We investigate the asymptotic, [Formula: see text], decay of the g(ij)(r) and show that this agrees with the analytic analysis of the contributions to the partial structure factors in the plane of complex wavevectors. We find the test particle density profiles to be free of unphysical artefacts, contrary to earlier reports.