Jacques Jean Vial

Determination of the molecular area on a liquid surface from thermodynamic functions : application to alkanes

A method is proposed to calculate the molecular area on the surface of a liquid from thermodynamic parameters such as the molar internal energy, the surface free energy, and the surface entropy. When the method is applied to the series of normal alkanes, it allows calculation of the area of the molecules on these liquid surfaces and to deduce the orientation of these molecules. Moreover, the molecular areas of the first terms of the alkane series and of hydrogen are also obtained by extrapolation.