Thermodynamics of pure confined lattice fluids

However, one-dimensional confined fluids with purely repulsive interactions can be expected to be only of limited usefulness, especially if one is interested in phase transitions that cannot occur in any one-dimensional system. In treating confined fluids in such a broader context, a key theoretical tool is the one usually referred to as mean-field theory. This powerful theory, by which the key problem of statistical thermodynamics, namely the computation of a partition function, becomes tractable, is introduced in Chapter 4 where we focus primarily on lattice models of confined pure fluids and their binary mixtures. In this chapter the emphasis is on features rendering confined fluids unique among other fluidic systems. One example in this context is the solid-like response of a confined fluid to an applied shear strain despite the absence of any solid-like structure of the fluid phase. 

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