Eur. Phys. J. E (2017) 40: 35
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2017-11522-8

Regular Article

Dynamic analysis of the light scattered by the non-equilibrium fluctuations of a ternary mixture of polystyrene-toluene-n-hexane

¹ Univ Pau & Pays Adour, CNRS, TOTAL, LFCR-IPRA, UMR5150, 1 Allée du Parc Montaury, 64600, Anglet, France
² Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bayreuth, D-95440, Bayreuth, Germany
³ Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad Complutense, Plaza de las Ciencias 1, 28040, Madrid, Spain
⁴ Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), 2, Place Maurice Quentin, 75001, Paris, France

^* e-mail: henri.bataller@univ-pau.fr

Received: 30 September 2016
Accepted: 1 March 2017
Published online: 30 March 2017

Abstract

Dynamic analysis of the light scattered by non-equilibrium fluctuations in a thermodiffusion experiment has been performed on a sample of polystyrene-toluene-n -hexane, at 0.9-49.55-49.55% mass fraction. Time decays of the non-equilibrium fluctuations have been obtained revealing the accurate detectability of three modes. The slowest mode has been attributed to the mass diffusion of the polymer into the binary solvent; the intermediate one to mass diffusion of the two molecular components of the solvent; finally, the fastest one has been attributed to the thermal diffusivity of the overall mixture. The two eigenvalues of the mass diffusion matrix have been evaluated with accuracy in the order of 1%. Neglecting cross-diffusion effects we obtain a simplified expression for the relative amplitude of the two mass diffusion modes, allowing a parameterized determination of polystyrene and toluene Soret coefficients in the ternary mixture. We suggest that a two wavelength shadowgraph experiment is needed for a complete determination of all the coefficients.