Solvation pressure of simple fluids in spherical pores

Abstract

Computer simulations via the grand canonical ensemble Monte Carlo method have been carried out to investigate the equilibrium properties of simple fluids distributed between the external bulk phase and the pore phase. Solvation pressures and pore density profiles are computed for the system of hard-sphere fluids inside a spherical hard-wall model pore. For dilute concentrations, the resulting solvation pressures are approximately equal to those in the bulk phase. However, at a moderately dense concentration of nB* = 0.4, a weakly oscillatory behavior of the solvation pressure starts to emerge. The apparent maximum and minimum peaks are exhibited in the case of nB* = 0.6 due to the local density inhomogeneities in the pore phase.