Understanding Liquid Mixture Phase Miscibility via Pair Energy Parameter Behaviors with Respect to Temperatures Determined from Molecular Simulations

Abstract

The miscibility behaviors of binary liquid mixtures were studied by a combination of molecular simulations and thermodynamic theories. Pairwise interaction parameters were obtained from molecular simulations that accounted for the effect of temperature. From a thermodynamic perspective, different types of liquid-liquid equilibrium (LLE) and different degrees of miscibility can be expressed in terms of energy behaviors with respect to temperature. Our simulation results proved this viewpoint by showing a correspondence between the simulation results and experimental observations. To describe phase diagrams, thermodynamic modeling is presented using the energy parameters obtained from the simulations. Correlations are needed to correct size mismatches between the simulations and the thermodynamic model. Using this method, not only the upper critical solution temperature (UCST) but also the closed-loop miscibility phase diagrams could be calculated without requiring additional parameters for specific interactions. The utility of this method is demonstrated for mixtures containing water, hydrocarbon, alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, chlorides, amines, nitriles, sulfides, and other organic liquids in various temperature ranges. The method presented in this paper can facilitate the understanding of the miscibilities in binary liquid mixtures from the viewpoint of thermal energy behaviors.