Thermal conductivity of the urea-hexadecane inclusion compound

The thermal conductivity and the heat capacity per unit volumec_p have been measured for the urea-hexadecane inclusion compound using the transient hot-wire method. Measurements were made under isobaric conditions at a pressure of 0.1 GPa and in the temperature range of 100–300 K. There was evidence for a phase transition at a temperature of about 160 K, in reasonable agreement with previous work. For the high-temperature phase was independent of temperature within ±1%. The low-temperature phase showed a weak temperature dependence, with (d In/d InT)_p = –0.13. It was inferred that interaction between acoustic phonons and low-frequency vibrational excitations of the guest molecules made a major contribution to the thermal resistivity. For the quantityc_p a weak maximum was observed in the region of the phase transition temperature.Dedicated to Dr D. W. Davidson in honor of his great contributions to the sciences of inclusion phenomena.