Experimental investigations on the thermophysical properties of methyl myristate in alcoholic solutions

Due to the limitations of using biodiesel directly or blended with petroleum diesel, alcohols are always employed as the additives to improve the certain properties of biodiesel. In this work, experimental investigations are conducted on the thermophysical properties, especially the density and viscosity, of binary mixtures containing the component of the biodiesel, namely methyl myristate, with higher alcohols, including 1-propanol, 1-butanol and 1-pentanol at atmospheric pressure from 303.15 K to 333.15 K. The Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann equation is introduced to correlate the viscosity. The derived property of thermal expansion coefficient is calculated based on the experimental density. The excess properties are obtained to further understand the interactions between the ester and the alcohols. The positive value of the excess molar volume and negative value of viscosity deviation are observed, indicating that the increasing contribution of the repulsive forces between methyl ester and the alcohols.