Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol.56, No.44, 12822-12832, 2017
Heat Transport Properties of CO2-Expanded Liquids: n-Hexane, n-Decane, and n-Tetradecane
A number of processes involve liquids saturated with significant quantities of gases at elevated pressures, e.g., processes in gas or CO2-expanded liquids (GXLs, CXLs), particle formation from gas or supercritical antisolvent methods (GAS, SAS, etc.), CO2 capture and sequestration, and enhanced oil recovery (EOR). In order to engineer these systems, the thermodynamic and transport properties are required. This contribution is one of the first reports for the heat transport properties of gas-expanded liquids at elevated pressures. The thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, and heat capacity are presented for binary systems of CO2 and the n-alkanes, n-hexane, n-decane, or n-tetradecane, at 25, 40, and 55 degrees C and pressures up to 106 bar. Equation of state modeling of literature vapor liquid equilibrium data was used to determine the compositions at the conditions of the experimental heat transport measurements. All measured properties decrease with increasing composition of CO2 (pressure) in a relatively linear manner until a CO2 composition of approximately 70 mol %. The Prandtl number, Pr, is calculated and decreases with increased CO2 composition for all systems. However, as the fluid viscosity decreases with increased CO2, the heat transfer coefficient, h, in pipe flow would actually increase in a turbulent flow regime.