Publication

Abstract : We derive an analytical form for the effective interaction forces between two solvophobic solutes, mediated by the solvent. The effective force is attractive for short ranges, which decreases linearly with surface-to-surface separation s between the solutes and repulsive in the long range falling off as 1/s 4. The attraction originates from the unbalanced Laplace force at the liquid–gas interface, generated by the repulsive interaction with the solvent particles. We illustrate with the Lennard–Jones solvent that the effective forces capture experimental observations on hydrophobic species in aqueous solution. We discuss the general implication of our results in the context of hydrophobic collapse.