Condensation of binary mixtures on horizontal tubes

The two most common models to describe the condensation of binary mixtures are the equilibrium model by Silver (Trans Inst Chem Eng 25:30-42, 1947) and the film model by Colburn and Drew (Transactions of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers 33:197-215, 1937), which is stated by Webb et al. (Int J Heat Mass Transf 39:3147-3156, 1996) as more accurate. The film model describes the outer heat transfer coefficient by subdividing it into two separate resistances against the heat transfer. The resistance of the liquid condensate film on the tube can be calculated with equations for the condensation of pure substances for the analogous flow pattern and geometry using the property data of the mixture. The resistance in the gas phase can be described by a thermodynamic parameter Z and the single phase heat transfer coefficient (G). In this work measurements for condensation of the binary mixtures n-pentane/iso-octane and iso-propanol/water on horizontal tubes for free convection are carried out. The obtained results are compared with the film model by Colburn and Drew (Transactions of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers 33:197-215, 1937). The comparison shows a rather big deviation between the theoretical model and the experimental results. To improve the prediction quality an own model based on dimensionless numbers is proposed, which describes the experimental results of this work significantly better than the film model.