Generalized flory theories for predicting properties of fluids containing long chain molecules

Abstract

Two theories have been developed which predict the equation of state for fluids containing chain-like molecules. The Generalized Flory and Generalized Flory-Dimer theories are derived as generalizations of the well-known Flory lattice theory to continuous space. The theories are applied to fluids and fluid mixtures containing molecules which are modelled as chains of tangent hard spheres. The predicted pressures are in very good agreement with Monte Carlo simulations of pure fluids containing chains of 4, 8 and 16 spheres and with Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics simulations of a mixture of hard chains of length n=8 and n=1.