SYNTHESIS AND ANALYSIS OF BINARY PHASE DIAGRAMS AN EVALUATION OF THE KAUFMAN APPROACH.

The Kaufman approach to the synthesis and analysis of phase diagrams has the advantages of simplicity, as a testing ground for solution theory and the ability to readily extract thermochemical information. It has the following limitations: its emphasis on studying the thermodynamic properties of unstable structure, inability to be easily extended to groups I, II and III, the fact that temperature independent interaction parameters are used and use of a regular solution model. Later developments have overcome many of the limitations of the approach and there are possibilities of further breakthroughs in the future.