Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

van der Waals Theory for Fluid-Solid Equilibria of Chain-Like Molecules

Journal Article · · Fluid Phase Equilibria
OSTI ID:836364

van der Waals perturbation theory is used to calculate fluid-solid phase diagrams for a system of perturbed-hard-sphere chains. In both fluid and solid phases, the free energy is the sum of a hard-sphere-chain term as the reference system, and a van der Waals term as the perturbation. The reference system for both phases follows from the Percus-Yevick integral theory coupled with Chiew's results for hard chains. An analytic model for the solid-phase reference term of a hard-chain system agrees well with computer-simulation data for the solid hard-chain compressibility. Simulation data for fluid-solid coexistence curves for hard spheres, and for 4-mer hard chains, are used to fit the reference Helmholtz free energy of the solid phase. The pressure and solid and fluid densities at the hard-chain melting point, predicted by our model, fairly reproduce the available simulation data at different chain lengths. The attractive perturbation term follows from an inverse-power potential with variable exponent n for both fluid and solid phases. The theory here presented reproduces the simulated phase diagrams of chain-like molecules and gives the correct trend for experimental melting points of normal alkanes.

Research Organization:
Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA (US)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Director. Office of Science. Office of Basic Energy Sciences (US)
DOE Contract Number:
AC03-76SF00098
OSTI ID:
836364
Report Number(s):
LBNL--47900
Journal Information:
Fluid Phase Equilibria, Journal Name: Fluid Phase Equilibria Journal Issue: SI Vol. 194-197; ISSN 0378-3812; ISSN FPEQDT
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Similar Records

Vapor-liquid equilibria for solvent-polymer systems from a perturbed hard-sphere-chain equation of state
Journal Article · Sun Mar 31 23:00:00 EST 1996 · Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research · OSTI ID:238039

A perturbed hard-sphere-chain equation of state for normal fluids and polymers
Journal Article · Thu Mar 31 23:00:00 EST 1994 · Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research; (United States) · OSTI ID:7036834

Solid-fluid equilibrium in molecular models of {bold {ital n}}-alkanes
Journal Article · Thu Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 1998 · Journal of Chemical Physics · OSTI ID:289240