Calorimetry and Thermodynamics of Solutions

Involved professor: John Oscarson

Thermodynamic data are extremely important to the petrochemical industry and are required for the design and modeling of many industrial processes. Phase equilibrium, chemical equilibrium and heat data are needed for good design and optimization of many important processes in the chemical industry. Calorimetry is a very useful tool in investigating the thermodynamics of the interactions which occur in fluids. Our research centers around the measurement of heats of reaction and chemical and phase equilibria using flow calorimetry and the modeling of these thermodynamic quantities.

While thermodynamic data can be used directly in the design of chemical processes, it is impractical, if not impossible, to make measurements on all mixtures of interest and at all required compositions. Correlations of semiempirical equations are used to interpolate and extrapolate the data to new conditions and/or compositions. measured data are being used to develop new correlations and to determine the appropriate constants in existing equations.

One of the areas of particular interest to us is the measurement and correlation of the thermodynamic quantities of chemical reactions which take place in high-temperature aqueous solutions (around 300 deg C). These reactions are of practical interest to the electric power industry since they play an important part in the corrosion of steam generators. We are involved in the development of a code to predict the chemistry in the crevices of the steam generators as well as in the generation of the data needed in the code.