Chemical-potential route for multicomponent fluids.

The chemical potentials of multicomponent fluids are derived in terms of the pair correlation functions for arbitrary number of components, interaction potentials, and dimensionality. The formally exact result is particularized to hard-sphere mixtures with zero or positive nonadditivity. As a simple application, the chemical potentials of three-dimensional additive hard-sphere mixtures are derived from the Percus-Yevick theory and the associated equation of state is obtained. This Percus-Yevick chemical-route equation of state is shown to be more accurate than the virial equation of state. An interpolation between the chemical-potential and compressibility routes exhibits a better performance than the well-known Boublík-Mansoori-Carnahan-Starling-Leland equation of state.