Determination of the quaternary phase diagram of the water–ethylene glycol–sucrose–NaCl system and a comparison between two theoretical methods for synthetic phase diagrams

Characterization of the thermodynamic properties of multi-solute aqueous solutions is of critical importance for biological and biochemical research. For example, the phase diagrams of aqueous systems, containing salts, saccharides, and plasma membrane permeating solutes, are indispensible in the field of cryobiology and pharmacology. However, only a few ternary phase diagrams are currently available for these systems. In this study, an auto-sampler differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) was used to determine the quaternary phase diagram of the water–ethylene glycol–sucrose–NaCl system. To improve the accuracy of melting point measurement, a “mass-redemption” method was also applied for the DSC technique. Base on the analyses of these experimental data, a comparison was made between the two practical approaches to generate phase diagrams of multi-solute solutions from those of single-solute solutions: the summation of cubic polynomial melting point equations versus the use of osmotic virial equations with cross coefficients. The calculated values of the model standard deviations suggested that both methods are satisfactory for characterizing this quaternary system.