Measurement and Correlation of the Thermal Conductivity of Liquid Paraffin Hydrocarbons and Their Mixtures

The thermal conductivities of several pure liquid hydrocarbons (C₁₁, C₁₄, C₁₅, C₁₆) and their binary mixtures (C₇ + C₁₁, C₁₁+C₁₆, C₇ + C₁₆) have been measured in the temperature range from 20 to 90°c at atmospheric pressure. Measurements have been performed with the aid of a fully automated transient hot-wire instrument. The accuracy of the reported data is estimated to be ±1 to ±1.5%. A new simple equation, which can calculate the thermal conductivity of pure n-paraffins (4≦n≦16) with the uncertainty of ±1%, has been correlated in terms of temperature and number of carbon atoms based on the present results including some other reliable data. Also a mixing rule for binary n-paraffin (7≦n≦16) mixtures was proposed and was adequately confirmed by the present results within the experimental error.