Surface tension of liquid transition and noble metals

•Mayer's formula of surface tension for liquid metals has been extended.•Extended formula is used to calculate surface tension of liquid transition metals.•Both BS and EAM potentials have been used together with VMHNC integral theory.•The results obtained with EAM potential are very close to the experimental data.

We have studied the surface tension of all liquid transition and noble metals using extended Mayer's empirical formula. For interionic interaction in metals, Bretonnet and Silbert (BS) pseudopotentials and the embedded atom method (EAM) potentials are chosen. Self-consistent variational modified hypernetted chain (VMHNC) integral equation theory is used to describe liquid state. The premier ingredients of the extended Mayer's formula are the effective hard sphere (HS) diameter and packing fraction. We calculated HS diameter using both BS and EAM potentials in conjunction with the VMHNC theory. We have found that the surface tension obtained using EAM potentials are in very good agreement with the available experimental data.