An effective viscosity model for suspensions of non-Brownian particles in aqueous xanthan gum matrices
摘要
Several models are available in the literature describing the viscosity of suspensions, but only a few incorporate the complex nature of the matrix. When they do so, they use the power law model. We propose a viscosity model based on the Cross model for non-Newtonian suspensions, consisting of non-Brownian particles in aqueous xanthan gum (XG) solutions. Aqueous solutions of xanthan gum with and without calcium carbonate particles (CC) were tested. We prepared mixtures with tap water at XG wt% in the semidilute regime, and CC vol% between 5% and 30%. Two different mixing protocols were used, differing in whether or not solutions were prepared via dilution with the stock XG solution. The base xanthan gum viscosities were collapsed into a master curve based on the Cross model. The shear-thinning behaviour is described as a function of polymer concentration by scaling laws for the Cross parameters, the zero-shear viscosity