Link to Pubmed [PMID] – 18205508
J Chem Phys 2008 Jan;128(3):034505
We performed systematic temperature and concentration dependent measurements of the Soret coefficient in different associated binary mixtures of water, deuterated water, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), methanol, ethanol, acetone, methanol, 1-propanol, 2-propanol, and propionaldehyde using the so-called thermal diffusion forced Rayleigh scattering method. For some of the associating binary mixtures such as ethanol/water, acetone/water, and DMSO/water, the concentration xw+/- at which the Soret coefficient changes its sign does not depend on temperature and is equal to the concentration xw x where the Soret coefficient isotherms intersect. For others such as 1-propanol/water, 2-propanol/water, and ethanol/DMSO, the sign change concentration is temperature dependent, which is the typical behavior observed for nonassociating mixtures. For systems with xw+/-=xw x, we found that xw+/- depends linearly on the ratio of the vaporization enthalpies of the pure components. Probably due to the similarity of methanol and DMSO, we do not observe a sign change for this mixture. The obtained results are related to structural changes in the fluid observed by nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spectrometric, and x-ray experiments in the literature. Furthermore, we discuss the influence of hydrophilic and hydrophobic interactions and the solubility on thermal diffusion behavior.