Density functional approach to solvent-induced interactions in neutral liquids: Comparison with experimental results

The solvent-induced interaction between two planar hard surfaces in a neutral hard sphere liquid is studied through two recent versions of weighted density approaches to density functional theory. The experimental results of Israelachvili [Acc. Chem. Res. 20, 415 (1987)] and co-workers [Horn and Israelachvili, Chem. Phys. Lett. 71, 192 (1980)] on the interaction energies between two mica surfaces in liquid tetradecane and also octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane are shown to be well reproduced by the present calculation using suitable values of effective hard sphere diameters and the actual bulk densities for these two liquids.