Thermophysical Properties of Fluids and Fluid Mixtures

The major goal of the project was to study the effect of critical fluctuations on the thermophysical properties and phase behavior of fluids and fluid mixtures. Long-range fluctuations appear because of the presence of critical phase transitions. A global theory of critical fluctuations was developed and applied to represent thermodynamic properties and transport properties of molecular fluids and fluid mixtures. In the second phase of the project, the theory was extended to deal with critical fluctuations in complex fluids such as polymer solutions and electrolyte solutions. The theoretical predictions have been confirmed by computer simulations and by light-scattering experiments. Fluctuations in fluids in nonequilibrium states have also been investigated