English

Modified Kelvin equations for capillary condensation in narrow and wide grooves

Statistical Mechanics 2018-04-18 v1 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics Chemical Physics

Abstract

We consider the location and order of capillary condensation transitions occurring in deep grooves of width LL and depth DD. For walls that are completely wet by liquid (contact angle θ=0\theta=0) the transition is continuous and its location is not sensitive to the depth of the groove. However for walls which are partially wet by liquid, where the transition is first-order, we show that the pressure at which it occurs is determined by a modified Kelvin equation characterized by an edge contact angle θE\theta_E describing the shape of the meniscus formed at the top of the groove. The dependence of θE\theta_E on the groove depth DD relies, in turn, on whether corner menisci are formed at the bottom of the groove in the low density gas-like phase. While for macroscopically wide grooves these are always present when θ<45°\theta<45\degree we argue that their formation is inhibited in narrow grooves. This has a number of implications including that the local pining of the meniscus and location of the condensation transition is different depending on whether the contact angle is greater or less than a universal value θ31°\theta^*\approx 31\degree. Our arguments are supported by detailed microscopic density functional theory calculations which show that the modified Kelvin equation remains highly accurate even when LL and DD are of the order of tens of molecular diameters.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1803.05734,
  title  = {Modified Kelvin equations for capillary condensation in narrow and wide grooves},
  author = {A. Malijevský and A. Parry},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1803.05734},
  year   = {2018}
}