The effective interactions between colloidal hard spheres in microporous media: Hypernetted chain approximation for replica Ornstein-Zernike equations

In this work, the effective interaction between hard sphere colloidal particles in the presence of a hard sphere solvent, both dispersed either in a disordered quenched matrix of hard spheres or in the random matrix of freely overlapping obstacles is analyzed, using the replica Ornstein-Zernike (ROZ) integral equations. The ROZ equations are supplemented by the hypernetted chain closure. The presence of either disordered or random matrix is manifested in the attractive minima of the colloid-colloid potential of mean force (PMF), in addition to a set of minima due to the presence of solvent species. The effects of matrix microporosity and solvent density on the PMF and the intercolloidal forces are investigated. This project has been supported in part by the National Council for Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACyT) under Grant 25301-E.