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Title: Effect of confinement on the solid-liquid coexistence of Lennard-Jones Fluid

Journal Article · · Journal of Chemical Physics
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4827397· OSTI ID:22251526

The solid-liquid coexistence of a Lennard-Jones fluid confined in slit pores of variable pore size, H, is studied using molecular dynamics simulations. Three-stage pseudo-supercritical transformation path of Grochola [J. Chem. Phys. 120(5), 2122 (2004)] and multiple histogram reweighting are employed for the confined system, for various pore sizes ranging from 20 to 5 molecular diameters, to compute the solid-liquid coexistence. The Gibbs free energy difference is evaluated using thermodynamic integration method by connecting solid-liquid phases under confinement via one or more intermediate states without any first order phase transition among them. Thermodynamic melting temperature is found to oscillate with wall separation, which is in agreement with the behavior seen for kinetic melting temperature evaluated in an earlier study. However, thermodynamic melting temperature for almost all wall separations is higher than the bulk case, which is contrary to the behavior seen for the kinetic melting temperature. The oscillation founds to decay at around H = 12, and beyond that pore size dependency of the shift in melting point is well represented by the Gibbs-Thompson equation.

OSTI ID:
22251526
Journal Information:
Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol. 139, Issue 17; Other Information: (c) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-9606
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English