Theoretical analysis and comparison with experimentation of the molecular and thermal diffusion coefficients for a ternary hydrocarbon mixture (Q2464555)

The objective of the paper is to calculate the thermal diffusion coefficients for a ternary mixture formed with \(n\)-dodecane, isobutylbenzene and 1,2,3,4-tetrahydronapthalene by Firoozabadi's model and compare them with the experimental data. The expressions for the heat and mass fluxes are derived in terms of the driving forces due to temperature and concentration gradients using the Onsager's reciprocity law. The three diffusion coefficients are then determined. The experiments were also carried out for both binary and ternary systems in a thermo gravitational column. A comparison is made between the theoretically calculated density with those of experimentally determined values. The theoretically calculated value is lower than the experimental value. There is an error in reporting the density variation of three binary mixtures with temperature on page 367, while the variation is shown as a function of the mass fraction in Figures 1, 2 and 3. There is a reasonable agreement between the theoretical and experimental values of the molecular and thermal diffusion coefficients for three binary mixtures, however there is a large variation in the values for the ternary system. The authors have not provided any explanation for this variation. A correlation is also established between the thermal diffusion coefficients in the ternary mixture with those in the three binary mixtures.