Thermodynamic Properties of Dodecamethylpentasiloxane, Tetradecamethylhexasiloxane, and Decamethylcyclopentasiloxane

Abstract

Siloxanes are widely used in the chemical industry and in process and power engineering. For example, they are used as working fluids of organic Rankine cycle power plants since 20 years ago. For the process design and optimization, thermodynamic properties, such as enthalpy, entropy, speed of sound, density, and vapor–liquid equilibrium, are required. While the properties of short-chained siloxanes, such as hexamethyldisiloxane (MM) or octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D₄), have already been investigated comprehensively, information on thermophysical properties of higher order siloxanes is limited. Therefore, measurements on density and speed of sound in the liquid state of dodecamethylpentasiloxane (MD₃M), tetradecamethylhexasiloxane (MD₄M), and decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D₅) are presented here. On the basis of these measurements and other experimental data from the literature, new fundamental equations of state were developed for these three fluids. The equations are based on the Helmholtz energy and, thus, allow for the calculation of any thermodynamic state property by means of derivatives with respect to the natural variables, namely temperature and density. The obtained models also feature a correct extrapolation behavior in regions where no data are available in order to ensure the applicability of the equations to mixture models in the future. On the basis of the present equations of state and recently published equations for other siloxanes, the possibility of the siloxanes belonging to the group of Bethe–Zel’dovich–Thompson fluids is also investigated.