Classification of interfacial wetting behavior in binary liquid mixtures

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Abstract
On the basis of both the Blume-Emery-Griffiths model and the Percus-Yevick theory we completely classify the wetting behavior of simple binary liquid mixtures at their liquid-vapor interface. The criteria with respect to the atomic interactions are whether a particular binary liquid mixture fulfills either the sufficient conditions for the absence of a wetting transition, or the necessary conditions for critical wetting, or the necessary conditions either for being wet already at low temperatures or for undergoing a first-order wetting transition upon approaching the critical end point along the triple line. The Percus-Yevick theory enables us to study systematically the dependence of interfacial wetting on the atomic radii of those two types of particles forming the binary liquid mixture. Also as functions of these radii, we determine all those boundaries in the parameter space of the atomic interactions within which the Percus-Yevick theory predicts such bulk phase diagrams as expected for simple binary liquid mixtures.