The microgravity DSC-DCMIX1 mission onboard ISS: Experiment description and results on the measurement of the Soret coefficients for isobutylbenzene, dodecane, tetralin ternary hydrocarbons mixtures

•The experimental results of SODI-DCMIX project on board ISS are studied.•Soret diffusions for hydrocoral ternary mixture are measured.•Five different compositions of IBB, nC12, THN mixture are considered.•The results are compared with similar studies in literature.

In the energy sector, in particular for hydrocarbon reservoirs, accurate simulation of the various forms of mass flux is important in oil exploration and optimal oil recovery. Since the diffusion and thermodiffusion coefficients of binary hydrocarbon mixtures have been measured and analyzed in detail elsewhere (Urteaga et al., 2012; Jaber et al., 2009; Kianian et al., 2012), here we experimentally analyzed and reported the separation in a ternary hydrocarbon mixture of tetrahydronaphthalene, isobutylbenzene, and dodecane due to thermal gradients, and we determined the Soret coefficients of this mixture for four different compositions. The thermodiffusion experiment was conducted by means of a Mach–Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) using two wavelengths and in a low gravity environment on board the International Space Station (ISS). Thus, we report the chemical concentration variations of the various cases obtained by the recently developed processing technique. In addition we investigated the reliability and the repeatability of the MZI experiment to study thermodiffusion for ternary mixtures. Finally, according to the transient behavior of the separation of the components, the Soret diffusion coefficients for various compositions of this mixture were measured and then compared.