Contribution to the determination of the vapour pressure curve of pure water in the temperature range between -80 ° C to +100 ° C, with high accuracy
The determination of the physical properties of pure water, especially the vapor-pressure curve, is one of the major issues identified by the Consultative Committee for Thermometry (CCT) of the technical committee in thermometry sub-field hygrometry to improve the accuracy of the national references in humidity.In order to achieve this objective, the LNE-CETIAT and the LNE-Cnam have jointly built a facility dedicated to the measurement of the saturation vapor pressure and temperature of pure water. The principle is based on a static measurement of the pressure and the temperature of pure water in a closed, temperature-controlled thermostat, conceived like a quasi-adiabatic calorimeter. The explored temperature range lies between 193,15 K and 373,15 K, and the pressure range between 0,06 Pa and 105 Pa.This work presents a full description of this facility and the preliminary results obtained for its characterization. The obtained results have been compared with available literature data. The final uncertainty budget took into account several components: pressure measurements, temperature measurements and environmental error sources such as thermal transpiration and hydrostatic pressure correction. Thanks to the employment of several technical solutions, the thermal contribution to the overall uncertainty budget is reduced, and the remaining major part is mainly due to pressure measurements.