Experimental investigation of liquid thermal diffusivity for fatty acid methyl/ethyl esters by dynamic light scattering method

Fatty acid methyl/ethyl esters have a potential application as fuel or fuel additives in internal combustion diesel engine. The present work focused on the determination of the liquid thermal diffusivity of six fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) and four fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEEs) over a wide temperature range from (303.15 to 473.15) K by dynamic light scattering (DLS) method. Results demonstrated that the liquid thermal diffusivity of FAMEs and FAEEs decreased as the increasing temperature but increased as the increasing carbon chain. Furthermore, the polynomial correlation of the liquid thermal diffusivity against the temperature was proposed. The maximum relative deviation (MRD) and absolute average relative deviation (AARD) between experimental data and the corresponding calculated values from the correlation were 2.00% and 1.00%, respectively. The obtained experimental data and proposed correlation in this study provide necessary data support for future industry applications of FAMEs and FAEEs as fuels or fuel additives in internal combustion engines.