Influence of cluster formation: Viscosity of concentrated emulsions

Abstract

Recently a new theory of viscosity of concentrated emulsions dependency on volume fraction of droplets (Starov V, Zhdanov G: J. Colloid Interface Sci, 258, 404 (2003)) has been suggested that relates the viscosity of concentrated emulsions to formation of clusters. Through experiments with milk at different concentrations of fat, cluster formation has been validated using optical microscopy and their properties determined using the mentioned theory. Viscometric studies have shown that within the shear rate range studied, both the packing density of fat droplets inside clusters and the relative viscosity of milk (viscosity over skim milk viscosity) are independent of shear-rate, but vary with volume fraction. Comparison of the experimental data with previous theories that assumed that the particles remained discrete shows wide variation. We attribute the discrepancy to cluster formation.