Simulating Van der Waals-interactions in water/hydrocarbon-based complex fluids

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a local Monte Carlo algorithm can inherently simulate Van der Waals interactions in water/hydrocarbon complex fluids, capturing their mesoscopic screening effects without explicit modeling.

Contribution

It introduces a method to include Van der Waals interactions in electrostatic simulations via a local Monte Carlo algorithm, simplifying complex fluid modeling.

Findings

Van der Waals interactions are effectively captured in the simulation.

The approach accounts for screening effects by salt in complex fluids.

The method enables mesoscopic distance modeling of interactions.

Abstract

In systems composed of water and hydrocarbons Van der Waals-interactions are dominated by the non-retarded, classical (Keesom) part of the Lifshitz-interaction; the interaction is screened by salt and extends over mesoscopic distances of the order of the size of the (micellar) constituents of complex fluids. We show that these interactions are included intrinsically in a recently introduced local Monte Carlo algorithm for simulating electrostatic interactions between charges in the presence of non-homogeneous dielectric media.