Low-Temperature Study of Thermodynamic and Rheological Properties of Ethylene Glycol Including the Supercooled Region

Abstract

A comprehensive discussion/analysis of the published viscosity data of ethylene glycol, EG, in the temperature range from 260 (just above the freezing point) to 465 K was recently reported in this journal. It was found that some of the reported data sets significantly deviate from each other, and the largest discrepancies were found at the lower end of the temperature interval examined (Mebelli et al. in Int. J. Thermophys. 42:116, 2021). Hence, in this work, the densities and viscosities of EG were measured in the temperature interval starting in the supercooled region at 248 and extending up to 313 K. Well-established experimental techniques were employed, that is, pycnometry and laminar flow viscometry, the relative precision of which were better than 0.5 and 0.5 %, respectively. The density was found to linearly depend on temperature in the temperature range studied; the cubic expansion coefficient was found to be γ = (5.20 + 3.99 × 10⁻³ T K^− 1) × 10⁻⁴ K⁻¹. When our experimental density data were applied to calculate the dynamic viscosity values using the correlation dependence published in the aforementioned review (Mebelli et al. in Int. J. Thermophys. 42:116, 2021), the discrepancy between our experimental data and the calculated values is less than 2 % above the freezing point; however, in the supercooled region, the discrepancy increases up to 4 % at 248 K. When the cooling rate is higher than 10 K min^− 1 and the sample mass is less than 5 mg, EG does not freeze; it undergoes glass formation (Tg =  − 121 °C) as revealed in our DSC experiments. The Arrhenius plot for viscosity data was found to be nonlinear; from the Angell plot, it was concluded that EG is a moderately fragile liquid with the fragility index = 70.