A group contribution method for the prediction of thermal conductivity of liquids and its application to the Prandtl number for vegetable oils

Data on thermal conductivity of liquids, as a function of temperature, are essential in the design of heat- and mass-transfer equipment. A number of c orrelations have been developed to predict thermal conductivity of liquids with limited success. Among the correlations proposed so far, only the corr elation due to Nagvekar and Daubert (Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 1987, 26, 1362) i s based on group contributions. In this paper, a new group contribution met hod is developed based on the Klaas and Viswanath (Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 199 8, 37, 2064) method for prediction of thermal conductivity of liquids and t he results are compared to the method of Nagvekar and Daubert and other exi sting correlations. The present method predicts thermal conductivity of som e 228 liquids that encompass 1487 experimental data points with an average absolute deviation of 2.5%. The group contribution method is used to examin e the temperature dependence of Prandtl number for vegetable oils.