Correlation rapidly estimates pure hydrocarbons' surface tension

Surface tension, an important property where wetting, foaming, emulsification and droplet formation are encountered, is used in the design of fractionators, absorbers, two phase pipelines, and in reservoir calculations. In this study, a simple correlation is developed to predict paraffin hydrocarbon surface tension as a function of molecular weight and temperature. The new correlation is suitable for the range of temperatures between –30 and 150°C and the hydrocarbon molecular weights between the range of 30 and 200, where good agreement is found between predicted and observed values.