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Empty liquid state and re-entrant phase behavior of the patchy colloids confined in the porous media

Patchy colloidal model with three and four equivalent patches, confined in the attractive random porous media, undergo re-entrant gas-liquid phase separation with the possibility for the liquid phase density to approach zero. This unusual behavior is caused by an interplay between strong fluid-fluid bonding interactions and weak fluid-matrix attractions. At high temperature the shape of the phase diagram is determined by the attractive interaction between the fluid particles; weak Yukawa attraction between fluid and obstacles only slightly enhances the fluid-fluid bonding. At low enough temperature the network of the fluid particles is formed and the shape of the phase diagram becomes defined by the Yukawa fluid-obstacle attraction. Due to this interaction a layer of mutually bonded particles around the obstacles is formed and the network becomes fluid particles in the network is defined by a spatial arrangement of the matrix particles. These features may open a new possibilities in making the equilibrium gels with the predefined nonuniform distribution of the particles.