Fig. 1.

LMF theory-based thermodynamic cycle for solvation. The bottom leg of the cycle corresponds to inserting a solute (S) into a mobile solvent (M), both of which have short- and long-ranged interactions. This solvation process results in a free energy change $\breve{\mathrm{\Omega }}$. The top leg of the cycle depicts the insertion of a renormalized solute (S_R) into a short-ranged mobile solvent (M₀), and the solvation free energy in this mimic system is $\breve{\mathrm{\Omega }}$. The sum of the free energies of the paths depicted by green arrows is $\mathrm{\Delta }{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\text{LMF}}=\breve{\mathrm{\Omega }}-{\breve{\mathrm{\Omega }}}_{\text{R}}$, as described in the text.