Refractive indices, molar volumes and molar refractions of binary liquid mixtures: concepts and correlations

Prompted by the observation that recent literature displays marked disagreement as to the proper treatment of data on the refractive indices of binary liquid mixtures, this paper clarifies the relationships among refractive index, molar volume and molar refraction and the corresponding mixing properties. It is shown that the molar refraction deviation function must be calculated on a mole fraction basis and the refractive index deviation function on a volume fraction basis, which makes it directly interpretable as a sign-reversed measure of the deviation of reduced free volume from ideality.