Flory-Huggins Phase Diagram of Polymer Mixing

This Demonstration shows Flory–Huggins polymer mixing with the simultaneous visualization of the free-energy curves of mixing and the resulting phase diagram. Here is the total Flory free-energy equation of mixing for polymers[1]:

mix

=kTχ

where



mix

is the molar quantity of the change in free energy upon mixing of polymers,

is the Boltzmann constant

1.38

-23

is temperature, kept constant at

298K

is the energy of the interaction between the components mixed,

is the volume fraction of polymer 1,

is the volume fraction of polymer 2,

is the degree of polymerization of polymer 1 and

is the degree of polymerization of polymer 2.

The free energy of the mixing curve and phase diagram (top) changes as a function of the

parameter and the degree of polymerization of the binary mixture (those being

and

). Additionally, the phase diagram is plotted in terms of

χN

. The shaded region of the polymer phase diagram (bottom) indicates the phase-separated, or two-phase, regime.

References

[1] J. P. Steimel, "Polymers and Composite Materials," Pacific Open Texts, 2022 18. scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/open-textbooks/18.

External Links

Flory-Huggins Model for Gibbs Free Energy of Mixing in Polymer Solutions

Permanent Citation

Sol Wright, Joshua Paul Steimel

"Flory-Huggins Phase Diagram of Polymer Mixing"
http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/FloryHugginsPhaseDiagramOfPolymerMixing/
Wolfram Demonstrations Project
Published: August 26, 2024