Reply to the ‘Comment on “Pressure enhancement in carbon nanopores: a major confinement effect”’ by D. van Dijk, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2020, 22, DOI: 10.1039/C9CP02890K

In his 'Comment' van Dijk points out that the local pressure at a point r in an inhomogeneous thermodynamic system, like other thermodynamic properties, is not uniquely defined; one must make an operational definition that involves deciding how to assign the intermolecular forces between pairs of molecules to the point r. This non-uniqueness difficulty is well known, and was discussed in our paper. It was discussed in detail in the 1950 paper of Irving and Kirkwood, and in many books and papers since then. We reply to these comments, and note that an average of the local pressure over a region of space may yield a well-defined pressure. We also discuss other possible ways to quantify the adsorption compression effect near an attractive wall. van Dijk also suggests that the non-uniqueness difficulty can be avoided by using the pressure of the uniform bulk fluid in equilibrium with the pore. While this pressure is well-defined, it only reflects the intermolecular forces in the bulk phase, and gives no information about the behavior in the pore.