Probing the link between residual entropy and viscosity of molecular fluids and model potentials

This work investigates the link between residual entropy and viscosity based on wide-ranging, highly accurate experimental and simulation data. This link was originally postulated by Rosenfeld in 1977 [Rosenfeld Y (1977) Phys Rev A 15: 2545-2549], and it is shown that this scaling results in an approximately monovariate relationship between residual entropy and reduced viscosity for a wide range of molecular fluids [argon, methane, CO2, SF6, refrigerant R-134a (1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane), refrigerant R-125 (pentafluoroethane), methanol, and water] and a range of model potentials (hard sphere, inverse power, Lennard-Jones, and Weeks-Chandler-Andersen). While the proposed "universal" correlation of Rosenfeld is shown to be far from universal, when used with the appropriate density scaling for molecular fluids, the viscosity of nonassociating molecular fluids can be mapped onto the model potentials. This mapping results in a length scale that is proportional to the cube root of experimentally measurable liquid volume values.