A polydisperse lattice-gas model

TL;DR

This paper introduces a lattice-gas model to study how polydispersity affects liquid-vapor phase equilibria, demonstrating that polydispersity in interaction strengths causes significant separation of cloud and shadow curves.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel lattice-gas model and Monte Carlo simulation approach to analyze the effects of polydispersity on phase behavior, focusing on interaction strength variations.

Findings

Polydispersity causes broad separation of cloud and shadow curves.

The model reproduces effects observed in more realistic systems and experiments.

Monte Carlo simulations effectively determine phase behavior under fixed polydispersity.

Abstract

We describe a lattice-gas model suitable for studying the generic effects of polydispersity on liquid-vapor phase equilibria. Using Monte Carlo simulation methods tailored for the accurate determination of phase behaviour under conditions of fixed polydispersity, we trace the cloud and shadow curves for a particular Schulz distribution of the polydisperse attribute. Although polydispersity enters the model solely in terms of the strengths of the interparticle interactions, this is sufficient to induce the broad separation of cloud and shadow curves seen both in more realistic models and experiments.