Evaluation of diffusion coefficients in multicomponent mixtures by means of the fluctuation theory

We derive general expressions for diffusion coefficients in multicomponent non-ideal gas or liquid mixtures. The derivation is based on the general statistical theory of fluctuations around an equilibrium state. The matrix of diffusion coefficients is expressed in terms of the equilibrium thermodynamic characteristics of the mixture (such as molar densities and internal energy), as well as in terms of the newly introduced parameters, the penetration lengths. This result serves to reduce the problem of determining the diffusion coefficients to a smaller number of physically meaningful characteristics. We demonstrate on several examples that the developed theory is in agreement with the established experimental facts and dependencies for the diffusion coefficients. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.