Molecular thermodynamic model

Other molecular thermodynamic models for protein-reverse micelle complexes have also emerged. Bratko et al. [171] presented a model for phase transfer of proteins in RMs. The shell and core model was combined with the Poisson-Boltzmann approximation for the protein-RM complex and for the protein-free RM. The increase in entropy of counterions released from RMs on solubilization of a protein was the main contribution to the decrease in free energy of com-plexation. Good agreement was found with SANS results of Sheu et al. [151] for cytochrome C solubilization and the effect of electrolytes on it. However, this model assumes that filled and empty RMs are of the same size, independent of salt strength and pH, which is not true according to experimental evidence available since then. 

Molecular Thermodynamic Models for Fluids of Chain-Like Molecules, Applications in Phase Equilibria and Micro-Phase Separation in Bulk and at Interface... 

LATTICE BASED MOLECULAR THERMODYNAMIC MODEL OF POLYMER SYSTEMS... 

The above molecular thermodynamic model for polymer systems has been widely tested by comparing with simulation results (Yang et al., 2006a Xin et al., 2008a). Figure 8 shows the comparisons between predicted critical temperature and critical volume fraction for binary polymer solutions at different chain lengths of with the... 

Many polymer blends or block polymer melts separate microscopically into complex meso-scale structures. It is a challenge to predict the multiscale structure of polymer systems including phase diagram, morphology evolution of micro-phase separation, density and composition profiles, and molecular conformations in the interfacial region between different phases. The formation mechanism of micro-phase structures for polymer blends or block copolymers essentially roots in a delicate balance between entropic and enthalpic contributions to the Helmholtz energy. Therefore, it is the key to establish a molecular thermodynamic model of the Helmholtz energy considered for those complex meso-scale structures. In this paper, we introduced a theoretical method based on a lattice model developed in this laboratory to study the multi-scale structure of polymer systems. First, a molecular thermodynamic model for uniform polymer system is presented. This model can... 

To establish the molecular thermodynamic model for uniform systems based on concepts from statistical mechanics, an effective method by combining statistical mechanics and molecular simulation has been recommended (Hu and Liu, 2006). Here, the role of molecular simulation is not limited to be a standard to test the reliability of models. More directly, a few simulation results are used to determine the analytical form and the corresponding coefficients of the models. It retains the rigor of statistical mechanics, while mathematical difficulties are avoided by using simulation results. The method is characterized by two steps (1) based on a statistical-mechanical derivation, an analytical expression is obtained first. The expression may contain unknown functions or coefficients because of mathematical difficulty or sometimes because of the introduced simplifications. (2) The form of the unknown functions or unknown coefficients is then determined by simulation results. For the adsorption of polymers at interfaces, simulation was used to test the validity of the weighting function of the WDA in DFT. For the meso-structure of a diblock copolymer melt confined in curved surfaces, we found from MC simulation that some more complex structures exist. From the information provided by simulation, these complex structures were approximated as a combination of simple structures. Then, the Helmholtz energy of these complex structures can be calculated by summing those of the different simple structures. 

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