Phase behaviors of nematic liquid crystal/linear polymer systems: Effect of specific interactions

A new model has been proposed that takes into account the specific interact ion between nematic liquid crystal and polymer. a generalized lattice fluid model was employed to describe the specific interaction between liquid cry stal and polymer. The proposed model postulates that a specific interaction between dissimilar components in a mixture has both an energetic and an en tropic component. A degeneracy parameter and an interaction parameter are a lso discussed, followed by a comparison of the experimental data to the mod el. The results show that that a specific interaction plays an important ro le in the phase behaviors of the given systems. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.