Film tension of liquid nano-film from molecular modeling

Abstract

Due to its geometry simplicity, the forces of thin liquid film are widely investigated and equivalently employed to explore the phys–chemical properties and mechanical stability of many other surfaces or colloid ensembles. The surface tension of bulk liquid ([Formula: see text]) and film tension ([Formula: see text]) are the most important parameters. Considering the insufficiency of detailed interpretation of film tension under micro-scale circumstances, a method for film tension was proposed based on numerical modeling. Assuming surface tension at different slab thicknesses being identical to the surface tension of film, the surface tension and disjoining pressure were subsequently used to evaluate the film tension based on the derivation of film thermodynamics, and a decreasing tendency was discovered for low temperature regions. The influence of saline concentration on nano-films was also investigated, and the comparison of film tensions suggested that higher concentration yielded larger film tension, with stronger decreasing intensity as a function of film thickness. Meanwhile, at thick film range (15–20 nm), film tension of higher concentration film continued to decrease as thickness increase, however it arrived to constant value for that of lower concentration. Finally, it was found that the film tension was almost independent on the film curvature, but varied with the thickness. The approach is applicable to symmetric emulsion films containing surfactants and bi-layer lipid films.