Eur. Phys. J. E (2016) 39: 111
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2016-16111-9

Regular Article

Development of a high-pressure set-up for measurements of binary diffusion coefficients in supercritical carbon dioxide

¹ MRC, CP165/62, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Av. F.D. Roosevelt, 50, B-1050, Brussels, Belgium
² Department of Chemistry, University of Coimbra, 3004 - 535, Coimbra, Portugal
³ Institute of Power Engineering, National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University, Tomsk, Russia

^* e-mail: sancherb@ulb.ac.be

Received: 3 August 2016
Accepted: 7 November 2016
Published online: 24 November 2016

Abstract

We present the development of a high-pressure apparatus for measurements of diffusion coefficients in supercritical fluids. The Taylor dispersion method has been adapted to conduct experiments at the pressures up to 25.0 MPa. In order to test the developed set-up, binary diffusion coefficients D at infinite dilution in supercritical carbon dioxide have been measured for a reference system, benzene, at temperatures in the range of 309.50-319.95 K. The effects of flow velocity, number of consecutive injections and absorbance at different wave numbers on the diffusion coefficient have been analysed. The obtained diffusion coefficients are of the order of 10^-8 m ²/s and in excellent agreement with the available literature data.