Solvation in atomic liquids: connection between Gaussian field theory and density functional theory

Abstract

For the problem of molecular solvation, formulated as a liquid submitted to the external potential field created by a molecular solute of arbitrary shape dissolved in that solvent, we draw a connection between the Gaussian field theory derived by David Chandler [Phys. Rev. E, 1993Rev. E, , 48, 2898 and classical density functional theory. We show that Chandler's results concerning the solvation of a hard core of arbitrary shape can be recovered by either minimising a linearised HNC functional using an auxiliary Lagrange multiplier field to impose a vanishing density inside the core, or by minimising this functional directly outside the core -indeed a simpler procedure. Those equivalent approaches are compared to two other variants of DFT, either in the HNC, or partially linearised HNC approximation, for the solvation of a Lennard-Jones solute of increasing size in a Lennard-Jones solvent. Compared to Monte-Carlo simulations, all those theories give acceptable results for the inhomogeneous solvent structure, but are completely out-of-range for the solvation free-energies. This can be fixed in DFT by adding a hard-sphere bridge correction to the HNC functional.

A life in Science: In memory of Jean-Pierre Badiali

“…Some other entropic effects for ionic systems are discussed in [28]. Comparison of the related Gaussian approaches and density functional theory approach (DFT) is also presented in this issue [29].…”