Dynamic viscosity of colloidal silica suspensions at low and high volume fractions.

A comprehensive study was carried out on the dynamic viscosity of X30 silica dispersions at both high and low volume fractions of colloidal silica particles at various electrolyte ionic strength and pH values. Booth and Ruiz-Reina and Carrique theoretical models (R-R&C) were compared in predicting the primary electroviscous effect (PEE) for viscosity at low volume fractions. To this respect the colloidal dispersion was well characterised with regards to electrolyte properties such as the Debye length, κ, calculated from the ionic strength, and zeta potential, ζ, calculated from the electrophoretic mobility using the full numerical model by O'Brien and White (O'B&W).