Measurement of diffusion and thermal diffusion in ternary fluid mixtures using a two-color optical beam deflection technique

We have developed a highly sensitive two-color beam deflection setup to measure diffusion and thermal diffusion in ternary fluid mixtures following a suggestion of Haugen and Firoozabadi [J. Phys. Chem. B 110, 17678 (2006)]. Simultaneous detection of two laser beams with different wavelengths makes it possible to determine the time dependent concentration profiles of all three components. By comparing the measured beam deflection signals to a numerical solution of the coupled heat and mass transport equations, the diffusion matrix, the thermal diffusion, and the Soret coefficients are obtained by a numerical model combined with a nonlinear least-squares fitting routine. The results can be improved by additional thermal diffusion forced Rayleigh scattering experiments, which yield a contrast-weighted average thermal diffusion coefficient. The three Soret coefficients can be obtained independently from the stationary beam deflection amplitudes. Measurements have been performed on the symmetric (equal weight fractions) ternary mixtures dodecane/isobutylbenzene/1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphthalene and 1-methylnaphthalene/octane/decane. There is only partial agreement between our results and literature data. (c) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3421547]