Abstract
Excess enthalpies ($H^{E}$) were measured by isothermal flow calorimetry for the nonionic amphiphile 2-butoxyethanol/water mixtures at 10 different temperatures (48.5 to $70^{\circ}C$) around and above the lower consolute solution temperature, $T_{lc}$. $H^{E}$ exhibits U-shape for the binary mixtures, and is large and negative which reflects substantial interaction between two chemical species. When the commonly used, semi-empirical Redlich-Kister (RK) polynomials were fitted to the measured $H^{E}$, plots of $H^{E}$ vs. weight fraction provided more accurate fitting with fewer parameters than conventionally drawn $H^{E}$ vs. mole fraction plots. This was due to the enhanced symmetry of $H^{E}$ vs. weight fraction plots. Using the fitted Redlich-Kister polynomials and the Gibbs-Helmholtz relation, temperature dependence of the activity coefficients were found and compared to the values determined from vapor-liquid equilibria. The activity coefficients were in the range of one to three, indicating that the binary system deviates from ideality but not substantially. They slightly depended on temperature and the temperature effect was equivalent to 10 % change in the activity coefficients.