Fitting the heat capacity of liquid n-alkanes: new measurements of n-heptadecane and n-octadecane

Literature data for the molar heat capacities of liquid n-alkanes from pent ane to hexacosane were fitted to a function of temperature and number of ca rbon atoms in the chain. The part of the heat capacity curves directly afte r the melting point was not taken into consideration. The function C-p = {4 3.9 + 13.990 (n - 1) + 0.05430.(n - 1)T} J K-1 mol(-1) describes the experi mental data to within the experimental error. The average percentage deviat ion is 0.18%. New measurements for the liquid heat capacity of heptadecane and octadecane are reported. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights rese rved.