THE SOLUBILITY OF ETHANE IN WATER UP TO 473 K

The Henry constants for the dissolution of ethane in water have been determined with two experimental methods up to 473 K and with an overall precision of 2%. From this data it was possible to calculate the thermodynamic properties of the dissolution process and using the results of the authors' previous study of the thermodynamics of dissolution of methane in water, it was possible to calculate the contribution of the so-called hydrophobic effect over a wide temperature range. It is shown that a Percus-Yevick plus Lennard-Jones perturbation theory accounts reasonably well for the observed behavior.