Absolute measurements of the thermal conductivity of alcohols by the transient hot-wire technique

New absolute measurements of the thermal conductivity of methanol, ethanol, propanol, butanol, pentanol, and hexanol at atmospheric pressure and in the temperature range 290–350 K are reported. The overall uncertainty in the reported thermal conductivity data is estimated to be better than ±0.5%, an estimate confirmed by the measurement of the thermal conductivity of water. The measurements presented in this paper have been used to develop a consistent theoretically based correlation for the prediction of the thermal conductivity of alcohols. The proposed scheme, based on an extention of the rigid-sphere model, permits the density dependence of the thermal conductivity of alcohols, for temperatures between 290 and 350 K and atmospheric pressure, to be represented successfully by an equation containing just one parameter characteristic of the fluid at each temperature.Paper presented at the Tenth Symposium on Thermophysical Properties, June 20–23, 1988, Gaithersburg, Maryland, U.S.A.