Determination of hydrocarbon-water interfacial tension using a new empirical correlation

Interfacial tension is one of the very important parameters in pharmacology science, chemical engineering and petroleum engineering. The interfacial tension between pure hydrocarbons and water is widely used in chemical and petroleum engineering and so that it is highly desirable to find its accurate values. In this study a new unique correlation has been developed based on a comprehensive database of pure hydrocarbons-water interfacial tension values which contained both aliphatic and aromatic compounds (32 different hydrocarbons) with pressure ranges of 0.1–300 MPa and temperature ranges of 252.44–550 K. The proposed correlation uses the density difference between pure hydrocarbon and water, system temperature and critical temperature of hydrocarbon to estimate the interfacial tension value. The accuracy and estimation efficiency of the proposed model has been checked by comparing the model estimated values with the corresponding experimental values. Also, they have been compared to the estimated values using the other common correlations which showed the superiority of the proposed model. Also the trend estimation capability test against pressure and temperature changes has been conducted and compared for the proposed model and other common correlations which showed that the proposed model is more efficient in estimating interfacial tension between pure hydrocarbons and water.