Dielectric properties of a mixture of dipolar hard spheres

Abstract

A theory for the dielectric constant, ε, of a fluid mixture of dipolar hard spheres is formulated by generalizing the methods developed by Ramshaw and Wertheim for the pure fluid case. The resulting expression for ε depends on the pair distribution functions, g _αβ(r ₁, θ₁, r ₂, θ₂) for a dipolar mixture. Due to the unavailability of exact representations for these dipolar pair distribution functions, the results of the mean spherical approximation are employed in the formalism developed. Numerical results are given for ε as calculated from the pair distribution functions for a spherical volume of macroscopic dimensions. The compositional dependence of the ε obtained in this way for a specific mixture is compared with the corresponding properties of the well established theories of Clausius-Mossotti-Debye and Onsager. In addition, the relative importance of the dipole moment and size of the hard sphere parameters in determining ε for a dipolar mixture (the correlative behaviour of which is described by the mean spherical approximation) is evaluated. It is found that the differences in hard core diameters can be largely ignored, in that ε for an ‘effective’ single component fluid can be given to within 2–5 per cent relative error (at worst) of the mean spherical approximation's result. Such an ‘effective pure fluid’ is described as having the same polarization content as the actual mixture being considered. Thereby, the properties of the effective fluid are determined by the quantity y = 4πβ(m ₁ ² ρ₁ + m ₂ ² ρ₂)/9 where m_i and ρ _i are the dipole moment and number density of component i in the binary mixture, with β = (kT)^-1.