The objectives of the project were to:
Study the effect of temperature on rheological properties of Guar gum and Xanthan gum of different concentrations.
Study the flow characteristics of Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids under different thermal regimes.
Comparison of Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluid for remediation of adsorbed contaminant.
Major findings include:
Rheological Analysis
In terms of viscosity, the effect of temperature change was higher on Guar gum than Xanthan gum, especially at mid to high concentrations.
Xanthan gum behaved as non-Newtonian shear-thinning fluid for all the selected range of temperature and concentration. Guar gum also displayed non-Newtonian shear thinning behavior only for mid to high concentrations.
An increase in non-Newtonian shear thinning behavior was observed with increase in temperature for mid to high concentrations of Xanthan gum. However, non-Newtonian shear thinning behavior of mid to high concentration of Guar gum showed neither decrease nor increase with change in temperature. Both polymers displayed improvement in shear thinning behavior with increase in concentrations.
Flow Experiments
Infiltration depth of both Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids decreased with the decrease in the temperature because of the change in their properties like dynamic viscosity, density and angle of contact. Infiltration of Xanthan gum solution is less compared to the Guar gum solution and water.
Contaminant Remediation
With the limited set of experiments conducted at 19°C, water was most effective in remediating the 2, 6-Dichlorobenzonitrile from synthetic porous media in comparison to 0.5g/l Guar gum and 0.5g/l Xanthan gum.
