Modelling of disjoining pressure for Lennard-Jones free thin films

Abstract

Development of disjoining pressure was performed to study the symmetric, Lennard-Jones (LJ) free thin films using molecular modelling. A methodology rooted from film thermodynamics was established to derive the disjoining pressure isotherm [Formula: see text], which is based on the surface tension at varied film thicknesses and can be viewed as a post-processing technique. The results showed that the disjoining pressure of LJ fluid is purely attractive. Compared with the complicated method reported previously, this methodology is demonstrated to be more convenient and readily applicable for other liquid films (e.g. water, aqueous thin films containing electrolyte or surfactants), meanwhile it can be applied at both low and high temperatures.