Search results for "soft"

Numerical Simulation of the Kinetics of Radical Decay in Single-Pulse High-Energy Electron-Irradiated Polymer Aqueous Solutions

2019

A new method for the numerical simulation of the radiation chemistry of aqueous polymer solutions is introduced. The method makes use of a deterministic approach combining the conventional homogeneous radiation chemistry of water with the chemistry of polymer radicals and other macromolecular species. The method is applied on single-pulse irradiations of aqueous polymer solutions. The speciation of macromolecular species accounts for the variations in the number of alkyl radicals per chain, molecular weight, and number of internal loops (as a consequence of an intramolecular radical-radical combination). In the simulations, the initial polymer molecular weight, polymer concentration, and do…

Bulk and interfacial properties in colloid-polymer mixtures

2005

Large-scale Monte Carlo simulations of a phase-separating colloid-polymer mixture are performed and compared to recent experiments. The approach is based on effective interaction potentials in which the central monomers of self-avoiding polymer chains are used as effective coordinates. By incorporating polymer nonideality together with soft colloid-polymer repulsion, the predicted binodal is in excellent agreement with recent experiments. In addition, the interfacial tension as well as the capillary length are in quantitative agreement with experimental results obtained at a number of points in the phase-coexistence region, without the use of any fit parameters.

Simulation and theory of fluid demixing and interfacial tension of mixtures of colloids and nonideal polymers.

2005

An extension of the Asakura-Oosawa-Vrij model of hard sphere colloids and non-adsorbing polymers, that takes polymer non-ideality into account through a repulsive stepfunction pair potential between polymers, is studied with grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations and density functional theory. Simulation results validate previous theoretical findings for the shift of the bulk fluid demixing binodal upon increasing strength of polymer-polymer repulsion, promoting the tendency to mix. For increasing strength of the polymer-polymer repulsion, simulation and theory consistently predict the interfacial tension of the free colloidal liquid-gas interface to decrease significantly for fixed colloi…

Calculation of phase diagrams not requiring the derivatives of the Gibbs energy for multinary mixtures

1996

A method for the calculation of phase diagrams (tie lines and binodal, spinodal, critical points and their stability) based exclusively on the Gibbs energy of mixing with no need of its derivatives with respect to the composition variables is extended to multinary mixtures for any number of components. The mathematical description of the (K-1)-dimensional phase diagram of a K-component mixture is presented. The method is demonstrated for a quinternary blend of five polymers exhibiting a closed miscibility gap; all binary, ternary and quaternary subsystems are completely miscible. The phase separation in the quinternary system is caused by very favorable interactions in the ternary subsystem…

Momentum-dependent interfacial tension in polymer solutions

2002

A model for the interface between a concentrated and a very dilute polymer solution is studied by Monte Carlo simulations at temperatures below the Theta temperature (in bad solvent conditions). The wave-number–dependent interfacial tension γ(q) is extracted from an analysis of the capillary wave amplitudes. It is shown that γ(q) decreases monotonically with q2, while no evidence is found for the predicted increase γ(q) ∝ κq2 with a positive bending rigidity κ of the interface at large q. Consequences for the interpretations of simulations and experiments on interfacial widths are briefly discussed.

‘Intrinsic’ profiles and capillary waves at interfaces between coexisting phases in polymer blends

2001

Abstract Lateral fluctuations in the local position of the center of the interface between coexisting phases in unmixed polymer blends lead to a broadening of interfacial widths; comparing self-consistent field predictions for the ‘intrinsic’ profile to simulations (or experiments), this ‘capillary wave’ broadening needs consideration. This problem has been studied by extensive Monte Carlo simulations of the bond fluctuation model for symmetrical polymer mixtures, both for free interfaces (between bulk phases) and for confined interfaces (in thin films between parallel walls). While the capillary wave predictions at large length scales are confirmed, the extraction of the ‘intrinsic’ profil…

Interfaces between coexisting phases of polymer mixtures: Comparison between Monte Carlo simulations and theoretical predictions

1997

Large scale Monte Carlo investigations of the interface between A-rich and B-rich phases of symmetric binary (AB) polymer mixtures are presented, using the bond fluctuation model of flexible chains with NA=NB=N=32 effective monomers. The temperature range studied, 0.144<T/Tc0.759, includes both the strong and the weak segregation limit. Interfacial free energy and interfacial structure are studied, and compared to predictions based on the selfconsistent field theory. Also the broadening of the interfacial width due to capillary waves is considered, and finite size effects due to the confinement of interfaces in thin films of polymer blends are discussed.

Molecular dynamics of supercooled polymer films

2000

We present results of molecular dynamics simulations for a supercooled polymer melt confined between two smooth and purely repulsive walls. The thickness D of the film is about 7 times the bulk radius of gyration. For all temperatures studied, a significant increase of the monomer and chain mobilities with respect to the bulk is observed. Preliminary results suggest that structural relaxation times exhibit a power-law behavior in the vicinity of a critical temperature T c (D) 0.39 (in Lennard-Jones units). This estimate of T c (D) is about 14% smaller than the corresponding bulk value. Despite this significant decrease the time dependence of various mean-square displacements seems to be una…

Spin Crossover Phenomenon in Coordination Compounds

2016

Phase behavior of the system hyperbranched polyglycerol+methanol+carbon dioxide

2010

Abstract Phase equilibrium data have been measured for the ternary system hyperbranched polyglycerol + methanol + carbon dioxide at temperatures of 313–450 K and pressures up to 13.5 MPa. Phase changes were determined according to a synthetic method using the Cailletet setup. At elevated temperatures the system shows a liquid–liquid–vapor region with lower solution temperatures. Besides the vapor–liquid and liquid–liquid equilibria, the vapor–liquid to vapor–liquid–liquid and vapor–liquid–liquid to liquid–liquid phase boundaries are reported at different polymer molar masses and can serve as test sets for thermodynamic models. A distinct influence of the polymer molar mass on the vapor–liqu…