Heat transfer in gas mixtures: Advantages of an extended thermodynamics approach

In this work we analyze and compare different approaches to the heat transfer problem in gas mixtures. Our aim is to show that for rarefied gases far from equilibrium the extended thermodynamics description is capable to reproduce some features observed by kinetic theory, that cannot be described by the Navier-Stokes-Fourier-Fick approximations. In this framework, we consider the case of a binary inert gas mixture confined between two infinite parallel plates kept at different temperatures.