Title: Clustering effects on the diffusion of patchy colloids in disordered porous media
Author(s):

	M. F. Holovko (Institute for Condensed Matter Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 1 Svientsitskii St., 79011 Lviv, Ukraine),
	M. Ya. Korvatska (Institute for Condensed Matter Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 1 Svientsitskii St., 79011 Lviv, Ukraine)

Enskog theory is extended for the description of the self-diffusion coefficient of patchy colloidal fluid in disordered porous media. The theory includes the contact values of fluid-fluid and fluid-matrix pair distribution functions that are modified to include the dependence from the so-called probe particle porosity, φ, in order to correctly describe the effects of trapping the fluid particles by a matrix. The proposed expressions for the modified contact values of fluid-fluid and fluid-matrix pair distribution functions include three terms. Namely, a hard sphere contribution obtained by us in the previous work [Holovko M. F., Korvatska M. Ya., Condens. Matter Phys., 2020, 23, 23605], the depletion contribution connected with the cluster-cluster and cluster-matrix repulsion and the intramolecular correlation inside the cluster. It is shown that the last term leads to a remarkable decrease of the self-diffusion coefficient at a low fluid density. With a decreasing matrix porosity, this effect becomes weaker. For intermediate fluid densities, the depletion contribution leads to an increase of the self-diffusion coefficient in comparison with the hard sphere fluid. For a sufficiently dense fluid, the self-diffusion coefficient strongly decreases due to a hard sphere effect. The influence of the cluster size and the type of clusters as well as of the parameters of porous media is investigated and discussed in detail.

Key words: patchy colloids, disordered porous media, Enskog theory, self-diffusion coefficient, geometrical porosity, probe particle porosity

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