Figure 3.

The effective volume displaced by a methane in the bulk(a) and in between two hydrophobic plates(b). The blue particle denotes a methane, and a dashed circle denotes a probe solvent molecular. The volume displaced by a methane in the bulk is just the van der Waals volume of the methane, but in between the two plates, the four corners are also displaced by the methane due to the finite volume of the probe ball.