Resolving Discrepancies in Disjoining Pressure Predictions for Liquid Nanofilms from Molecular Simulations

Literature values of disjoining pressure in liquid nanofilms from different molecular simulation methods show significant discrepancies. We demonstrate that these arise from neglecting long-range dispersion interactions and inconsistent definitions of film thickness in the original Peng method. A key insight is that long-range dispersion affects surface tension in a thickness-dependent manner, increasing it at large thickness but suppressing its enhancement at small thickness due to disjoining-pressure-induced normal compression and lateral expansion. This even gives rise to a crossover behavior in the surface tension of water nanofilms simulated with the flexible SPC/E potential, although the crossover is not clearly observed in the rigid SPC/E and TIP4P/2005 models at the same temperature. Since disjoining pressure is obtained from the derivative of surface tension with respect to thickness, this nontrivial dependence strongly impacts its accuracy. With proper treatment of dispersion interactions and a consistent thickness definition, the revised Peng method agrees with the Bhatt method and yields more accurate Hamaker constants. © 2026 American Chemical Society