Good Reporting Practice for Thermophysical and Thermochemical Property Measurements (IUPAC Technical Report).

Scientific projects frequently involve measurements of thermophysical, thermochemical, and other related properties of chemical compounds and materials. These measured property data have significant potential value for the scientific community, but incomplete and inaccurate reporting often hampers their utilization. The present IUPAC Technical Report summarizes the needs of chemical engineers and researchers as consumers of these data and shows how publishing practices can improve information transfer. In the Report, general principles of Good Reporting Practice are developed together with examples illustrating typical cases of reporting issues. Adoption of these principles will improve the quality, reproducibility, and usefulness of experimental data, bring a better level of consistency to results, and increase the efficiency and impact of research. Closely related to Good Reporting Practice, basic elements of Good Research Practice are also introduced with a goal to reduce the number of ambiguities and unresolved problems within the thermophysical property data domain.

A non-additive repulsive contribution in an equation of state: The development for homonuclear square well chains equation of state validated against Monte Carlo simulation.

This work consists of the adaptation of a non-additive hard sphere theory inspired by Malakhov and Volkov [Polym. Sci., Ser. A 49(6), 745-756 (2007)] to a square-well chain. Using the thermodynamic perturbation theory, an additional term is proposed that describes the effect of perturbing the chain of square well spheres by a non-additive parameter. In order to validate this development, NPT Monte Carlo simulations of thermodynamic and structural properties of the non-additive square well for a pure chain and a binary mixture of chains are performed. Good agreements are observed between the compressibility factors originating from the theory and those from molecular simulations.

Industrial Requirements for Thermodynamic and Transport Properties: 2020.

This paper reports the results of an investigation of industrial requirements for thermodynamic and transport properties carried out during the years 2019-2020. It is a follow-up of a similar investigation performed and published 10 years ago by the Working Party (WP) of Thermodynamics and Transport Properties of European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE).1 The main goal was to investigate the advances in this area over the past 10 years, to identify the limitations that still exist, and to propose future R&D directions that will address the industrial needs. An updated questionnaire, with two new categories, namely, digitalization and comparison to previous survey/changes over the past 10 years, was sent to a broad number of experts in companies with a diverse activity spectrum, in oil and gas, chemicals, pharmaceuticals/biotechnology, food, chemical/mechanical engineering, consultancy, and power generation, among others, and in software suppliers and contract research laboratories. Very comprehensive answers were received by 37 companies, mostly from Europe (operating globally), but answers were also provided by companies in the USA and Japan. The response rate was about 60%, compared to 47% in the year 2010. The paper is written in such a way that both the majority and minority points of view are presented, and although the discussion is focused on needs and challenges, the benefits of thermodynamics and success stories are also reported. The results of the survey are thematically structured and cover changes, challenges, and further needs for a number of areas of interest such as data, models, systems, properties, and computational aspects (molecular simulation, algorithms and standards, and digitalization). Education and collaboration are discussed and recommendations on the future research activities are also outlined. In addition, a few initiatives, books, and reviews published in the past decade are briefly discussed. It is a long paper and, to provide the reader with a more complete understanding of the survey, many (anonymous) quotations (indicated with "..." and italics) from the industrial colleagues who have participated in the survey are provided. To help disseminate the specific information of interest only to particular industrial sectors, the paper has been written in such a way that the individual sections can also be read independently of each other.

Diffusion coefficients in CO2/n-alkane binary liquid mixtures by molecular simulation.

The objective of this work was to determine Fick diffusion coefficients in CO2/n-alkane binary mixtures without experimental test. For doing so, Maxwell-Stefan (MS) diffusivity was calculated by molecular simulation. Simultaneously, a thermodynamic factor was estimated using the PC-SAFT (perturbed chain statistical associating fluid theory) equation of state (eos). The binary Fick diffusivities are calculated as the product of both quantities. The binary mixtures investigated contain CO2 and various n-alkanes (nC10, nC16, nC22, nC28, nC44), at their bubble pressure at varying temperatures between 298 and 373 K. The calculated values of Fick diffusivities were compared against the experimental ones for the systems where literature data exist. An average deviation of 26% was found for the CO2/n-decane and 15% for CO2/n-hexadecane mixtures. These results support that molecular simulation can be employed as a tool for the determination of Fick diffusivities in high pressure systems, like in oil reservoirs, without the need to construct a complicated and expensive experimental setup. This method only requires the phase behavior of the desired system, and it can be used for multicomponent mixtures. As an example, predictions of Fick diffusivities were done for CO2 binary mixtures with heavy n-alkanes (nC22, nC28, nC44).

Molecular modeling of diffusion coefficient and ionic conductivity of CO2 in aqueous ionic solutions.

Mass diffusion coefficients of CO(2)/brine mixtures under thermodynamic conditions of deep saline aquifers have been investigated by molecular simulation. The objective of this work is to provide estimates of the diffusion coefficient of CO(2) in salty water to compensate the lack of experimental data on this property. We analyzed the influence of temperature, CO(2) concentration,and salinity on the diffusion coefficient, the rotational diffusion, as well as the electrical conductivity. We observe an increase of the mass diffusion coefficient with the temperature, but no clear dependence is identified with the salinity or with the CO(2) mole fraction, if the system is overall dilute. In this case, we notice an important dispersion on the values of the diffusion coefficient which impairs any conclusive statement about the effect of the gas concentration on the mobility of CO(2) molecules. Rotational relaxation times for water and CO(2) increase by decreasing temperature or increasing the salt concentration. We propose a correlation for the self-diffusion coefficient of CO(2) in terms of the rotational relaxation time which can ultimately be used to estimate the mutual diffusion coefficient of CO(2) in brine. The electrical conductivity of the CO(2)-brine mixtures was also calculated under different thermodynamic conditions. Electrical conductivity tends to increase with the temperature and salt concentration. However, we do not observe any influence of this property with the CO(2) concentration at the studied regimes. Our results give a first evaluation of the variation of the CO(2)-brine mass diffusion coefficient, rotational relaxation times, and electrical conductivity under the thermodynamic conditions typically encountered in deep saline aquifers.

Prediction of the PC-SAFT associating parameters by molecular simulation.

In this work, we propose a new methodology to determine association scheme and association parameters (energy and volume) of a SAFT-type EoS for hydrogen-bonding molecules. This paper focuses on 1-alkanol molecules, but the new methodology can also be applied for any other associating system. The idea is to use molecular simulation technique to determine independently monomer and free hydrogen fractions from which the association scheme can be deduced. The 3B scheme thus appeared to be the most appropriate for 1-alkanols. Once the association scheme is defined, the association strength can be back-calculated from molecular simulation results and used as an independent property for the equation of state parameters regression, in addition of the classical phase properties such as vapor pressure and liquid molar volume. A new set of parameters for 1-alkanol for the PPC-SAFT equation of state has been proposed following this methodology. Results are found in good agreement with experimental data for both phase properties and free hydrogen-bonding sites. Hence, this new methodology makes it possible to optimize parameters allowing an accurate reproduction of pure compounds data and yielding physically significant values for associating energy and associating volume.