Exact Analytical Solution of the Flory-Huggins Model and Extensions to Multicomponent Systems

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Auteurs principaux: de Souza, J. Pedro, Stone, Howard A.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author de Souza, J. Pedro
Stone, Howard A.
author_facet de Souza, J. Pedro
Stone, Howard A.
contents The Flory-Huggins theory describes the phase separation of solutions containing polymers. Although it finds widespread application from polymer physics to materials science to biology, the concentrations that coexist in separate phases at equilibrium have not been determined analytically, and numerical techniques are required that restrict the theory's ease of application. In this work, we derive an implicit analytical solution to the Flory-Huggins theory of one polymer in a solvent by applying a procedure that we call the implicit substitution method. While the solutions are implicit and in the form of composite variables, they can be mapped explicitly to a phase diagram in composition space. We apply the same formalism to multicomponent polymeric systems, where we find analytical solutions for polydisperse mixtures of polymers of one type. Finally, while complete analytical solutions are not possible for arbitrary mixtures, we propose computationally efficient strategies to map out coexistence curves for systems with many components of different polymer types.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_17649
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Exact Analytical Solution of the Flory-Huggins Model and Extensions to Multicomponent Systems
de Souza, J. Pedro
Stone, Howard A.
Soft Condensed Matter
Mathematical Physics
The Flory-Huggins theory describes the phase separation of solutions containing polymers. Although it finds widespread application from polymer physics to materials science to biology, the concentrations that coexist in separate phases at equilibrium have not been determined analytically, and numerical techniques are required that restrict the theory's ease of application. In this work, we derive an implicit analytical solution to the Flory-Huggins theory of one polymer in a solvent by applying a procedure that we call the implicit substitution method. While the solutions are implicit and in the form of composite variables, they can be mapped explicitly to a phase diagram in composition space. We apply the same formalism to multicomponent polymeric systems, where we find analytical solutions for polydisperse mixtures of polymers of one type. Finally, while complete analytical solutions are not possible for arbitrary mixtures, we propose computationally efficient strategies to map out coexistence curves for systems with many components of different polymer types.
title Exact Analytical Solution of the Flory-Huggins Model and Extensions to Multicomponent Systems
topic Soft Condensed Matter
Mathematical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.17649