A new predictive model for liquid/air surface tension of mixtures: Hydrocarbon mixtures

This article presents a new predictive model that was created for estimating the surface tension of mixtures. This model was based on the predictive model for ideal solutions of Hildebrand-Scott and on the correlative model of Jouyban-Acree. Other mixing rules were evaluated and compared with the proposed model, including classic approaches such as Sprow and Prausnitz, parachor, and corresponding states. Hydrocarbons mixtures were chosen as the standard to test the performance of the chosen models in the prediction and the correlation of mixture surface tensions that exhibit different asymmetries in the mixture, with chemical nature, shape (e.g., paraffinic, naphthenic, and aromatic) and the chain size being evaluated at several temperatures. A total of 773 experimental data was used. The proposed model had the best performance among the studied models, and is capable of predicting the surface tension of approximately ideal binary mixtures of hydrocarbons with very good accuracy. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.