High-accuracy calculations of sixteen collision integrals for Lennard-Jones (12–6) gases and their interpolation to parameterize neon, argon, and krypton

The inverse problem of parameterizing intermolecular potentials given macroscopic transport and thermodynamic data is addressed. Procedures are developed to create arbitrary-precision algorithms for transport collision integrals, using the Lennard-Jones (12–6) potential as an example. Interpolation formulas are produced that compute these collision integrals to four-digit accuracy over the reduced-temperature range 0.3≤T⁎≤400, allowing very fast computation. Lennard-Jones parameters for neon, argon, and krypton are determined by simultaneously fitting the observed temperature dependences of their viscosities and second virial coefficients—one of the first times that a thermodynamic and a dynamic property have been used simultaneously for Lennard-Jones parameterization. In addition to matching viscosities and second virial coefficients within the bounds of experimental error, the determined Lennard-Jones parameters are also found to predict the thermal conductivity and self-diffusion coefficient accurately, supporting the value of the Lennard-Jones (12–6) potential for noble-gas transport-property correlation.