Theoretical and Experimental Studies of Phase Equilibrium in Fluids

Benjamin Widom教授获得理论与计算化学计划的资助，对相分离的稀高聚物溶液进行理论和实验研究，特别是界面上的结构和聚合物构象。这一基础理论研究将导致对聚合物溶液性质的更好理解，以及它们对组成它们的聚合物分子性质的依赖。Widom表明，用于这些研究的理论模型与具有多体和远邻相互作用的伊辛自旋模型等效。这种晶格微乳模型的研究将强调广义的两亲-两亲相互作用、不对称状态以及相关、结构和散射函数。这些解决方案的理论研究将指向获得界面结构，包括界面中聚合物链几何形状的空间依赖性。

Professor Benjamin Widom is funded by a grant from The Theoretical and Computational Chemistry Program to perform theoretical and experimental studies of phase-separated dilute high-polymer solutions, particularly the structure and polymer conformation at the interface. This fundamental theoretical research will lead to an improved understanding of the properties of polymer solutions, and their dependence on the molecular properties of the polymers which comprise them. The theoretical model used for these studies has been shown by Widom to be equivalent to the Ising-spin model with many-body and further-neighbor interactions. The proposed studies of this lattice microemulsion model will emphasize generalized amphiphile-amphiphile interactions, unsymmetrical states, and the correlation, structure, and scattering functions. The theoretical studies of these solutions will be directed toward obtaining the interfacial structure, including the spatial dependence of the polymer-chain geometry in the interface.