On the determination of partial molar volumes, partial molar refractions, mean electronic polarizabilities and effective molecular radii from dilute multi-component data alone using response surface models

Abstract

A quaternary system consisting of three solutes, namely ethanol, diethylene glycol (DEG) and triethylene glycol (TEG) in benzene at 298.15 K and 1.0125 × 105 Pa was studied. An experimental design in the range of concentration 0.006 < xsolute-i < 0.023 was explored, optimizing the metric distance among the solutes to avoid clustering. On-line simultaneous experimental measurements using a densitometer and a refractometer were utilized to measure bulk solution density and bulk refractive index, respectively. Response surface models describing the total molar volume and total molar refraction were employed to determine the partial molar volumes and the partial molar refractions of each solute from the dilute multi-component data alone. Neither densities nor refractive indices of any of the pure components were used and no binary information was required for the analysis. Definitions for the mean electronic polarizability and the effective molecular radius of a solute based on the partial molar refraction were introduced. Subsequently, the mean electronic polarizabilities and the effective molecular radii for each solute in multi-component solutions, as well as the solvent were determined. The results obtained for the partial molar volumes, partial molar refractions, electronic polarizabilities and the effective molecular radii were in good agreement with those obtained from independent binary experiments as well as those from literature binary data. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.