Investigation and modelling of surface tension of power-law fluids

Abstract

Thermo-physical properties of power-law fluids are both required for engineering and product design applications in food, drugs, cosmetics and agriculture. Surface tension not only determines the quality of many of the products resulting from different industries as noted before, but also affects some important steps in the production process: catalysis, adsorption, distillation and extraction, etc. This study involved the measurement of surface tension of power-law fluids (xanthan gum, carboxymethyl cellulose and sodium alginate) using the drop weight method for the concentration range of 0.1–0.6% w/w and temperature range of 293.15–333.15 K. The experimental measurements are often unavailable, expensive and time consuming; hence a model has been developed for predicting the surface tension of power-law fluids. Central composite rotatable design-response surface methodology (CCRD-RSM) has been used for model prediction.