Phase separation of fluids in porous media: A molecular dynamics study

Abstract

We present comprehensive molecular dynamics results for phase-separation kinetics of fluids in a porous medium. This system is modeled by a symmetric Lennard-Jones fluid mixture with a quenched random field. The presence of disorder slows down domain growth from power-law to a logarithmic form. It also modifies the correlation functions and structure factors which characterize the morphology. In particular, the structure-factor tail shows a non-Porod behavior, which is the consequence of scattering from rough interfaces.