Mixing rules and effective potentials in gaseous mixtures

We generate exact mixing rules for dilute gaseous mixtures with nonconformal interactions by introducing an adequate effective potential. The general mixing rule leads to several approximations of the van der Waals type. The work uses nonconformal model pair potentials that accurately describe the pure fluid properties. The validity of the approximate mixing rules is assessed by comparison with exact results for binary mixtures over wide ranges of temperature and composition. Large differences in energy, size and potential profile are considered. The simplest mixing rules are straightforward generalizations of the van der Waals rules and one version, based on a square-well (SW) approximation, performs with high precision for all systems except for those with extreme differences in molecular size. The SW mixing rule is used to predict excess virial coefficients of mixtures involving Ar, Kr, H2 and CF4.