Viscosity modeling of the ternary system 1-methylnaphthalene +n-tridecane+2,2,4,4,6,8,8-heptamethylnonane up to 100 MPa

Abstract

Viscosity measurements of well-defined mixtures can be used to evaluate existing viscosity models. Recently, an extensive experimental study of the viscosity up to 100 MPa have been carried out for the ternary system composed of 1-methylnaphthalene+n-tridecane+2,2,4,4,6,8,8-heptamethylnonane. This system is a very simple, representation of some petroleum distillation cuts at 510 K. Three recently proposed viscosity models with a physical and theoretical background have been evaluated on this ternary system. The evaluated models are based on the rough hard-sphere scheme, the free-volume, and the friction theory. For all models, the predicted viscosities for the three pure compounds, the three binaries and the ternary are within or close to the experimental uncertainty (±2%)). satisfactory for most industrial applications. This work shows the potential extension of these viscosity approaches to real petroleum fluids. For comparison purposes results obtained with the well-known mixing laws (Grunberg-Nissan and Katti-Chaudhri) are also presented. Further, it has been found that the widely used LBC model can not predict the viscosity of this ternary system satisfactorily.

Key Words:

• Free-volume
• f-theory
• hard-sphere
• hydrocarbon mixtures
• modeling
• pressure
• viscosity