Evaluation of the activation energy of viscous flow for a binary mixture in order to estimate the thermodiffusion coefficient

Abstract

The evaluation of the activation energy in Eyring's viscosity theory is of great importance in estimating the thermodiffusion coefficient for associating and non-associating fluid mixtures. Several methods were used to estimate the activation energies of pure components and then extended to mixtures of linear hydrocarbon chains. Results show that the recent model of Abbasi et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 131: 014502, 2009.] gives a good outcome in determining the activation energy of the components of a binary mixture. The activation energy model for pure components is shown to be useful for obtaining the activation energy of the mixture. In this paper, the activation energy model using alternative forms of Eyring's viscosity theory is used to estimate the thermodiffusion coefficient values for hydrocarbon binary mixtures. Comparisons of predicted thermodiffusion coefficients using different theoretical models with the experimental data show good capability of the activation energy model.