Global phase diagrams of binary mixtures Systematic basis for describing types of phase equilibrium phenomena

Abstract

All possible phase equilibrium phenomena of binary mixtures are systematically constructed using only the generic properties of the Gibbs energy as a function of composition at fixed pressure and temperature. The method is independent of any particular equation of state or Helmholtz energy model. We have constructed these phenomena corresponding to different numbers of degrees of freedom in the thermodynamic parameter space, and have shown how features at each level map to the parameter space of the model, i.e. to its global phase diagram. We have argued that our approach provides a basis to construct a classification scheme for global phase diagrams of binary mixtures, which improves upon the scheme of van Konynenburg and Scott.