With the aim of providing reliable benchmark values, we have measured the Soret, diffusion and thermal diffusion coefficients of the three binary mixtures of dodecane, isobutylbenzene and 1,2,3,4 tetrahydronaphthalene for a concentration of 50 wt% at a temperature of 25C. The experimental techniques applied by the five participating laboratories are transient holographic gratings, annular and parallelepipedic thermogravitational columns, and vertical parallelepipedic columns with velocity amplitude determination by laser doppler velocimetry. The systems have also been studied in a annular thermogravitational column filled with a porous medium in the gap. There is a good agreement between the different experiments with deviations of the order of a few per cent in most cases (8.5% at most). The numerical values are tabulated in the paper.

Thermal diffusion coefficients in three ternary mixtures are measured in a thermogravitational column. One of the mixtures consists of one normal alkane and two aromatics (dodecane-isobutylbenzene-tetrahydronaphthalene), and the other two consist of two normal alkanes and one aromatic (octane-decane-1-methylnaphthalene). This is the first report of measured thermal diffusion coefficients (for all species) of a ternary nonelectrolyte mixture in literature. The results in ternary mixtures of octane-decane-1-methylnaphthalene show a sign change of the thermal diffusion coefficient for decane as the composition changes, despite the fact that the two normal alkanes are similar. In addition to thermal diffusion coefficients, molecular diffusion coefficients are also measured for three binaries and one of the ternary mixtures. The open-end capillary-tube method was used in the measurement of molecular diffusion coefficients. The molecular and thermal diffusion coefficients allow the estimation of thermal diffusion factors in binary and ternary mixtures. However, in the ternaries one also has to calculate phenomenological coefficients from the molecular diffusion coefficients. A comparison of the binary and ternary thermal diffusion factors for the mixtures comprised of octane-decane-1-methylnaphthalene reveals a remarkable difference in the thermal diffusion behavior in binary and ternary mixtures.

In this study, we have measured the thermodiffusion coefficients of six hydrocarbon liquid ternary mixtures at 25 °C using the thermogravitational technique. Mixtures of 1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphthalene-isobutylbenzene-n-dodecane at four different concentrations and 1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphthalene-isobutylbenzene-n-decane at two concentrations have been considered. We have used a plane-thermogravitational column with a small gap dimension to improve the accuracy of the recently reported data. The obtained results have been confirmed by measurements in a cylindrical column. We have also measured the thermodiffusion coefficients of 13 binary mixtures between the different components of ternaries in order to analyze the validity of the additive rule proposed in the literature to determine thermodiffusion coefficients of ternary mixtures from binary thermodiffusion data. A new correlation based on column separation, which reproduces the data within the experimental error, is proposed.

We report on the measurement of diffusion (D), thermodiffusion (D_T), and Soret (S_T) coefficients in water-isopropanol mixtures by three different instrumental techniques: thermogravitational column in combination with sliding symmetric tubes, optical beam deflection, and optical digital interferometry. All the coefficients have been measured over the full concentration range. Results from different instruments are in excellent agreement over a broad overlapping composition (water mass fraction) range 0.2 < c < 0.7, providing new reliable benchmark data. Comparison with microgravity measurements (SODI/IVIDIL (Selected Optical Diagnostic Instrument/Influence of VIbration on DIffusion in Liquids)) onboard the International Space Station and with literature data (where available) generally gives a good agreement. Contrary to theoretical predictions and previous experimental expectations we have not observed a second sign change of S_T at low water concentrations.