Measurements of thermal effusivity of liquids using a conventional photoacoustic cell

In this article, we present a new photoacoustic technique, based on the conventional photoacoustic configuration, to characterize the thermal effusivity of liquid samples. This new technique is applicable for all kind of liquid samples, including the nontransparent ones. In order to show the usefulness of this new technique, we measured the thermal effusivity of a variety of liquid samples including: distilled water, ethanol, methanol, chloroform, glycerol, and car oil. The comparison with literature values shows a remarkable agreement. Also, we show measurements of the thermal effusivity of acetone in distilled water mixtures, showing the graphical dependence of this thermal property with the concentration of one of the components.