Binary fluid

A fluid mixture containing two chemical components. Its composition and interactions can produce transport behavior and phase transitions unlike those of either pure component.

Connect

Chemical potential: A thermodynamic quantity that measures how a system’s free energy changes when particles of a component are added. Differences in chemical potential drive component diffusion through a mixture.
Mixture: A material made from two or more substances physically combined without necessarily forming a single chemical compound. A binary fluid is the fluid-state case with exactly two components.
Liquid–liquid extraction: A separation method that transfers a dissolved substance between two immiscible liquid phases. It uses composition-dependent partitioning between two liquid components or phases.
Pure fluid: A fluid composed of a single chemical substance, rather than a mixture of components. It lacks the independent composition fluctuations found in binary fluids.
Fick's laws of diffusion: Equations describing how concentration gradients produce diffusive flux and how concentration changes over time. They describe ordinary composition-driven diffusion in binary mixtures.
Mole fraction: The amount of a component divided by the total amount of all components in a mixture. It is a standard way to specify binary-fluid composition.
Microemulsion: A thermodynamically stable dispersion of oil and water, typically stabilized by surfactants and often containing a cosurfactant. These multicomponent fluid systems exploit phase behavior near mixing boundaries.
Ternary mixture: A mixture containing three chemical components. A third component adds another independent composition variable and changes phase behavior.
Soret effect: The separation of components in a mixture caused by a temperature gradient. It couples heat transport to composition changes in binary fluids.
Chemical equilibrium: A state in which chemical potentials balance so that no net chemical reaction or component transfer drives change. Coexisting phases must satisfy chemical-potential equality for each component.