Viscosity and specific conductivity measurements as probe of molecular structure of an ethylene glycol – water solution

Ethylene Glycol-Water mixtures are a very convenient model system, firstly, due to its simplicity, and secondly, it allows you to adjust the viscosity in a fairly wide range of values. In addition, ethylene glycol-water mixtures can be considered as a prototype of systems containing molecules with several hydroxyl groups. In this work, we measured the dynamic viscosity of the Ethylene Glycol-Water mixtures over the entire range of concentrations. The viscosity activation energy dependence versus ethylene glycol mole fraction was determined and discussed. A novel equation for modeling the activation energy and viscosity concentration dependences was proposed. The theory based on the assumption that the nonlinear characteristics can be associated with some structural changes of the mixtures, and that the reaction kinetics can be applied to this breakdown. The possible change in the complex varieties for different concentrations was discussed. Correlation between the viscosity activation energy of the Ethylene Glycol-Water mixture and pre-exponential factor of the Arrhenius type equation for viscosity was performed. Three concentration regions are determined, where the structure of water-ethylene glycol complexes changes.