Importance of Molecular Structure on the Thermophoresis of Binary Mixtures.

Using thermal lens spectroscopy, we study the role of molecular structural isomers of butanol on the thermophoresis (or Soret effect) of binary mixtures of methanol in butanol. In this study, we show that the thermal lens signal due to the Soret effect changes its sign for all the different concentrations of binary mixtures of butanol with methanol except for the one containing tertiary-butanol. The magnitude and sign of the Soret coefficients strongly depend on the molecular structure of the isomers of butanol in the binary mixture with methanol. This isomerization dependence is in stark contrast to the expected mass dependence of the Soret effect.