Reliability of thermal conductivity measurement of liquids by using transient hot-wire, photon-correlation spectroscopy and the laser flash method

Measuring the thermal conductivity of liquids is important, but not easy, because of the complexity of and the natural convection in liquids, and reliable thermal conductivity measurements in liquids under various sample conditions is essential for data accuracy. We have introduced and developed a validation chain for measuring the thermal conductivity of liquids by using three different experimental methods: the transient hot-wire (THW), the photon correlation spectroscopy (PCS) and the laser flash (LF) methods in the temperature range from −30 to 90 °C. We checked the performance of the validation chain developed in this study by measuring the thermal conductivity of liquid toluene. We found good agreement between the thermal conductivity data obtained by using the THW, PCS and LF methods. To demonstrate the use of this validation chain for measurements of thermophysical properties in liquids, we also showed its use in measuring the specific heat of a volatile liquid, toluene which can be extracted from thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, and density measurements without any effects of volatilization.