The effective interactions between colloidal hard spheres in microporous media: Hypernetted chain approximation for replica Ornstein-Zernike equations

In this work, the effective interaction between hard sphere colloidal parti cles in the. presence of a hard sphere solvent, both dispersed either in a disordered quenched matrix of hard spheres or in the random matrix of freel y overlapping obstacles is analyzed, using the replica Ornstein-Zernike (RO Z) integral equations. The ROZ equations are supplemented by the hypernette d chain closure. The presence of either disordered or random matrix is mani fested in the attractive minima of the colloid-colloid potential of mean fo rce (PMF), in addition to a set of minima due to the presence of solvent sp ecies. The effects of matrix microporosity and solvent density on the PMF a nd the intercolloidal forces are investigated.