Capillary condensation for fluids in spherical cavities

TL;DR

This paper compares two theoretical models for capillary condensation of fluids in spherical nano-cavities, showing that a simple droplet model can be improved with small corrections informed by density functional theory.

Contribution

It introduces a correction to the simplified droplet model for capillary condensation in spherical cavities based on detailed density functional theory calculations.

Findings

Both models show good agreement after correction.

The corrected simple model improves prediction accuracy.

Connections are made to planar and cylindrical geometries.

Abstract

The capillary condensation for fluids into spherical nano-cavities is analyzed within the frame of two theoretical approaches. One description is based on a widely used simplified version of the droplet model formulated for studying atomic nuclei. The other, is a more elaborated calculation performed by applying a density functional theory. The agreement between both models is examined and it is shown that a small correction to the simple fluid model improves the predictions. A connection to results previously obtained for planar slits and cylindrical pores is done.