Application of Continuous Thermodynamics to The Stability of Polymer Systems. IV

Abstract

A method for establishing in the framework of continuous thermodynamics the stability criteria for multiple critical states of increasing order is presented. The method applies to a relatively general class of Gibbs free energy relations for polymer solutions: The function replacing the χ-term in the classic Flory-Huggins theory is permitted to depend on a finite number of moments of the polymer distribution so as to embrace most Gibbs free energy relations used in practice. In this way, determinant criteria for multiple critical states are formulated that are analogous in structure to those in traditional (discrete) thermodynamics. However, the dimension of the determinants is reduced from N (number of polymer species) to n (number of moments taken into account).