Experimental surface tensions for binary mixtures (1,2-ethandiol + water), (1,2-ethandiol + acetonitrile), and (acetonitrile + water) at temperatures of 283.15 K, 298.15K, and 308.15 K and the ternary mixture (1,2-ethandiol/water/acetonitrile) at 298.15 K have been measured with the Du Nouy ring tensiometer. The surface tension of the above mentioned binary and ternary systems were correlated with empirical and thermodynamic based models. The methods of Pando et al. and Ku et al. were used to correlate the ternary surface tension data. The Fu et al., Kalies et al. and Wang et al. models were also applied to predict surface tension in the ternary system. The mean average absolute deviations obtained from the comparison of experimental and calculated surface tension values for ternary system with three models are less than 2.4%, which leads to concluding that these models show a good accuracy in different situations in comparison with other predictive equations. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.