Thermodynamic Speed of Sound Data for Liquid and Supercritical Alcohols

Because of their caloric and thermal nature, speed of sound data are vital for the development of fundamental Helmholtz energy equations of state for fluids. The present work reports such data for methanol, 1-propanol, 2-propanol, and 1-butanol along seven isotherms in the temperature range from 220 to 500 K and a pressure of up to 125 MPa. The overall expanded uncertainty varies between 0.07% and 0.11% with a confidence level of 95%. The employed experiment is based on a double path length pulse-echo method with a single piezoelectric quartz crystal of 8 MHz, which is placed between two reflectors at different path lengths. Measured speed of sound data for the four alcohols are fitted with double polynomial equations and compared with literature sources.