Critical assessment of diffusion coefficients in semidilute to concentrated solutions of polystyrene in toluene

Measurement of the Soret coefficients for a ternary hydrocarbon mixture in low gravity environment

While the Soret coefficients of binary mixtures have been widely measured in the past, here we report the first measurement of the Soret coefficient of a ternary mixture in a low gravity environment on board the International Space Station. The sample was contained in a 10 mm × 10 mm × 5 mm (w, l, h) cell and was monitored by means of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer at two wavelengths. The analyzed sample was a mixture of tetrahydronaphthalene, isobutylbenzene, and dodecane at the weight fraction of 0.1∕0.8∕0.1. While the lateral walls of the cell did not possess complete thermal isolation, the separation of the components in the central region of the cavity was comparable to purely diffusive behavior. The same experimental parameters have been monitored in Run7 and Run12 of the Selectable Optical Diagnostics Instrument-Diffusion and Soret Coefficient experiment in order to verify the accuracy of the setup. The similarity of the results demonstrates the repeatability of thermodiffusion experiments in a microgravity environment. There was nearly equal separation of the tetrahydronaphthalene and isobutylbenzene components in opposite directions, while dodecane experienced a weak separation in the same direction as isobutylbenzene. Finally, Fourier image processing and calculations of the transient separation of the components were used to analyze the heat transfer in the system and to measure the Soret coefficients for this ternary mixture. The successful measurements shown in this work can serve as the standard for ground experiments and for numerical modeling of hydrocarbon mixtures.

Measurement of diffusion and thermal diffusion in ternary fluid mixtures using a two-color optical beam deflection technique

We have developed a highly sensitive two-color beam deflection setup to measure diffusion and thermal diffusion in ternary fluid mixtures following a suggestion of Haugen and Firoozabadi [J. Phys. Chem. B 110, 17678 (2006)]. Simultaneous detection of two laser beams with different wavelengths makes it possible to determine the time dependent concentration profiles of all three components. By comparing the measured beam deflection signals to a numerical solution of the coupled heat and mass transport equations, the diffusion matrix, the thermal diffusion, and the Soret coefficients are obtained by a numerical model combined with a nonlinear least-squares fitting routine. The results can be improved by additional thermal diffusion forced Rayleigh scattering experiments, which yield a contrast-weighted average thermal diffusion coefficient. The three Soret coefficients can be obtained independently from the stationary beam deflection amplitudes. Measurements have been performed on the symmetric (equal weight fractions) ternary mixtures dodecane/isobutylbenzene/1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphthalene and 1-methylnaphthalene/octane/decane. There is only partial agreement between our results and literature data.