ACTIVITY-COEFFICIENTS IN NEARLY ATHERMAL MODEL POLYMER/SOLVENT SYSTEMS

Constant pressure Monte Carlo simulations were performed to study the activity coefficients of bead-spring polymers dissolved in a monomeric solvent. Activity coefficients were obtained for binary mixtures of monomer and 20-mer for compositions ranging from pure 20-mer to pure solvent, using the chain increment method to obtain the chemical potentials of long-chain solute and monomeric solvent Infinite dilution activity coefficients were also calculated for polymeric solutes in monomeric solvents and monomeric solutes in polymeric solvents solutions with chain length up to 60. Such detailed information on activity coefficients in polymer/soluent systems with large size differences had not been available previously from simulation or experiment. Several engineering models were tested for their ability-to predict the activity coefficients in these nearly athermal systems. Results indicate that simple free-volume models can provide us with qualitatively accurate predictions for both shell-chain solvent and long-chain solutes, provided that the functional form of the free-volume dependence is chosen appropriately.