Thermal Wave Resonator Cavity Applied to the Study of the Thermal Diffusivity of Coffee Infusions

Abstract

Among the photothermal methods, the photopyroelectric technique, in its several experimental configurations, has been extensively used to measure the thermal properties of liquids, mainly the thermal effusivity and diffusivity. In this paper, the use of the so-called thermal wave resonator cavity method, in the cavity-length-scan mode, to measure the thermal diffusivity of commercial coffee infusions with samples at different concentrations and degrees of degradation induced by heating cycles is reported. A linear relationship between the logarithm of the pyroelectric signal amplitude and the sample thickness was observed, in agreement with the basic theory for the experimental configuration used here, from which the thermal diffusivity values of the samples were obtained. The thermal diffusivity was found to be almost independent of the coffee concentration in water but that this parameter is sensitive to sample modifications induced by degradation. This work represents another step to demonstrate the capability of the used method for characterization of the thermal properties of liquids.