Vapor-Phase Helmholtz Equation for HFC-227ea from Speed-of-Sound Measurements

This work presents measurements of the speed-of-sound in the vapor phase of 1,1,1,2,3,3,3-heptafluoropropane (HFC-227ea). The measurements were obtained in a stainless-steel spherical resonator with a volume of ∼900 cm3 at temperatures between 260 and 380 K and at pressures up to 500 kPa. Ideal-gas heat capacities and acoustic virial coefficients are directly produced from the data. A Helmholtz equation of state of high accuracy is proposed, whose parameters are directly obtained from speed-of-sound data fitting. The ideal-gas heat capacity data are fit by a functions and used when fitting the Helmholtz equation for the vapor phase. From this equation of state other thermodynamic state function are derived. Due to the high accuracy of the equation, only very precise experimental data are suitable for the model validation and only density measurements have these requirements. A very high accuracy is reached in density prediction, showing the obtained Helmholtz equation to be very reliable. The deduced vapor densities are furthermore compared with those obtained from acoustic virial coefficients with the temperature dependences calculated from hard-core square-well potentials.