Liquid-Liquid Equilibrium of Polydisperse Copolymer Solutions. Multivariate Distribution Functions in Continuous Thermodynamics

In addition to the usual polydispersity with respect to molar mass, copolymers show chemical polydispersity. Thus, the species present may not be adequately characterized by a single variable, and a divariate distribution function has to be applied for describing the composition of the copolymer. In continuous thermodynamics, such continuous distribution functions are used directly (without splitting into pseudocomponents) for describing the composition of complex multicomponent systems. Whereas until now usually only one distribution variable has been used in continuous thermodynamics, consideration of copolymers requires an extension to divariate distribution functions. Continuous thermodynamics is generalized to divariate distribution functions in this paper. The liquid-liquid equilibrium of copolymer solutions is considered as a specific example.