Keywords

adsorption, Lennard-Jones gas, wetting, rough surface, hard spheres, matrix spheres

Abstract

We study the adsorption, including wetting, of a Lennard-Jones gas on a rough surface consisting of rough layer on a smooth substrate with which the gas interacts via a 9-3 potential. The rough layer is two molecular diameters thick and consists of a disordered quenched matrix of hard spheres. As well as interacting with the other matrix spheres by the hard-sphere potential, the matrix molecules interact with the gas molecules by the hard-sphere potential. Hence, on average, the degree to which the gas molecules can approach the substrate depends only on the density of the matrix layer. The density of this rough layer has a significant effect. As the density of the matrix layer increases, the adsorption isotherms pass from wetting to a prewetting transition, and, if the layer is dense enough, to partial wetting. It is interesting that the prewetting transition remains first order.

Original Publication Citation

Bryk, Pawe, Stefan Sokolowski, and Douglas Henderson."Some aspects of the adsorption of a Lennard-Jones gas on a rough surface." The Journal of Chemical Physics 11 (1999): 15-17.