title: Molecular simulation study of the effect of pressure on the vapor-liquid interface of the square-well fluid.
abstract: We examine a model system to study the effect of pressure on the surface tension of a vapor-liquid interface. The system is a two-component mixture of spheres interacting with the square-well (A-A) and hard-sphere (B-B) potentials and with unlike (A-B) interactions ranging (for different cases) from hard sphere to strongly attractive square well. The bulk-phase and interfacial properties are measured by molecular dynamics simulation for coexisting vapor-liquid phases for various mixture compositions, pressures, and temperatures. The variation of the surface tension with pressure compares well to values given by surface-excess formulas derived from thermodynamic considerations. We find that surface tension increases with pressure only for the case of an inert solute (hard-sphere A-B interactions) and that the presence of A-B attractions strongly promotes a decrease of surface tension with pressure. An examination of density and composition profiles is made to explain these effects in terms of surface-adsorption arguments.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260-4200, USA.
authors.forename: Jayant K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Kofke