Dynamic thermodiffusion theory for ternary liquid mixtures

Abstract

Following the non-equilibrium thermodynamics approach, we develop expressions for the calculation of the thermal diffusion coefficients in a ternary system. On the basis of some physical justifications, we approximate the net heat of transport with the activation energy of viscous flow. In parallel, we revisit the Kempers model and propose new expressions for the estimation of the thermal diffusion factors in a ternary mixture. The proposed expressions are based on a dynamic modeling approach, as they incorporate the activation energy of viscous flow, which is a fluid flow property and contains the effects of some of the parameters that govern thermodiffusion. The proposed expressions, the Kempers and Ghorayeb–Firoozabadi–Shukla models are evaluated against the experimental data. Our expression which was developed on the basis of the Kempers approach has the best performance.