Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol.101, No.4, 3378-3389, 1994
Confined Water and Hydrophobic Attraction as a Result of Metastable Coordination, Stabilized by Hydrophobic Surfaces
The hydrophobic hydration and interaction between hydrophobic surfaces are treated as a "wetting phenomenon" in terms of a phenomenological Landau-Ginzburg approach. The model is based on the assumption that the breakdown of hydrogen bonds at a hydrophobic wall can stabilize a layer of four-coordinated water near the surface. The theory predicts the formation of more structured, four-coordinated, confined water between two hydrophobic surfaces, when the two layers overlap. A peculiar shape of the disjoining pressure isotherm follows from this picture, including exponential attraction at short and long distances (with longer decay length at short distances), a plateau in between, ended by a jump (first order transition) to the exponential decay at large distances.
Keywords:LONG-RANGE CORRELATIONS;LIQUID WATER;DEPINNING TRANSITIONS;MOLECULAR MOBILITY;PHASE-TRANSITIONS;HYDRATION;SYSTEMS;FORCES;SOLUTES;DEFECTS