Density, Viscosity, Speed of Sound, and Bulk Modulus of Methyl Alkanes, Dimethyl Alkanes, and Hydrotreated Renewable Fuels

The density, viscosity, and speed of sound were measured in this work for pure component branched alkanes (2-methyloctane, 4-methyloctane, 2-methylnonane, 2-methyldecane, 3-methylundecane, 2-methylpentadecane, 7-methylhexadecane, 3,6-dimethyloctane, and 3,5-dimethylheptane), commonly found in hydrotreated renewable fuels (HRFs) and for HRFs from tallow, camelina oil, and algae and waste cooking oil blended 50/50 with petroleum diesel. The density and viscosity were measured at temperatures from (283.15 to 373.15) K and ranged from (661 to 788) kg.m(-3) for density and (0.261 to 5.36) mPa.s for viscosity. Speed of sound data were measured at temperatures from (283.15 to 323.15) K and spanned from (1081 to 1393) m.s(-1). The bulk modulus was calculated from the density and speed of sound data, and its values varied from (809 to 1527) MPa. All values increased as the carbon chain length on the alkane increased. All physical property values for the HRFs fell between those measured for individual pure component branched alkanes providing property data for the development of surrogate mixtures for these renewable fuels.