Binary mixtures of sticky spheres using Percus-Yevick theory

We study a binary mixture of sticky Baxter-like spheres within the Percus-Yevick theory. The equations of liquid-liquid phase equilibrium are solved numerically. Thus, the equations of the derivatives of the chemical potentials, previously derived by Barboy, are integrated along constant-pressure paths, and the phase diagrams for various systems are constructed. The spinodals for the problem are also studied. It transpires that, unlike previous work on Baxter liquid-gas equilibrium within Percus-Yevick, the liquid-liquid separation is well behaved, showing expected features of critical point, symmetric spinodal lying within the binodal, and mean-field exponents. The structure factors for binary mixtures are calculated. A simple prescription for estimating the binary square-well structure factors is also proposed. The work should be of value to those scientists studying mixtures of colloidal particles with an attractive well and a hard core.