TERNARY MIXTURES OF MESOMORPHIC POLYMERS

The theory of ternary mixtures of mesomorphic semi-rigid polymers is reviewed. Polymer chains are modelled as elastic lines (with bend curvature) and a density functional method is used to construct a general expression for free energy of mixing which includes terms representing the entropy of mixing, the entropy of chain configuration and the mean field through pairwise interaction potentials. Expressions for the chemical potentials are derived and numerical methods used to compute phase diagrams for a specific mixture, the mesomorphic semi-rigid polymer1/solvent2/solvent3 system.