LIOPHOBIC INTERACTION IN BAXTER ADHESIVE FLUID

The solvent mediated force between the hard solutes mimicking liophobic colloids in Baxter's adhesive solvent is studied on the basis of the solution to the Percus-Yevick/Ornstein-Zernike equation for spatial correlations in an infinitely dilute solution. The contact value of the solute-solute potential of mean force remains the same as observed previously in hard sphere fluid but its range increases in the presence of the attractive interaction among the molecules of the solvent. At the critical conditions of the model fluid, the solvation force between the macroparticles tends to vanish in parallel with the increasing compressibility of the fluid. The size dependence of the intercolloidal interaction is similar but slightly more pronounced than found in fluids with pure hard core interaction.