Direct determination of intermolecular potentials from gaseous transport coefficients alone

The paper describes a method for the determination of the intermolecular pair-potential energy function from dilute gas transport coefficient data alone. In particular, it is demonstrated that the depth of the potential energy minimum may be extracted from viscosity data, burdened with a maximum uncertainty of ± 1 per cent, to within a tolerance band of at most ± 5 per cent. The method is based upon an iterative procedure and makes use of the rate and degree of convergence of this scheme in the determination of the potential well depth. The technique is tested first on simulated viscosity data of negligible uncertainty and then on real viscosity data for argon. In the latter case the intermolecular potential and the well depth obtained are in agreement with current best estimates to within their mutual uncertainty.