PHASE-EQUILIBRIA OF BALANCED MICROEMULSIONS

The flexible surface model is a powerful framework in which to describ e the thermodynamics of fluid. membrane phases. In the case of balance d microemulsions (and their bilayer analogue, the L(3) phase), a gener al form for the free energy density has been proposed. In this paper, we consider the phase behavior of balanced microemulsions and show tha t this model is successful in capturing the important features of expe rimentally determined phase diagrams of systems which exhibit this rem arkable phase.