No abstract

Pectin and mucilage are polysaccharides from the cactus Opuntia ficus-indica, which are also known as hydrocolloids, with useful properties in industries such as food, pharmaceuticals, and construction, among others. In the present work, cactus hydrocolloids were hydrolyzed characterized using two techniques: first, thin-layer chromatography, to identify the monosaccharides present in the sample, followed by the phenol–sulfuric acid method to determine the monosaccharide content. The hydrolyzing method allowed us to reduce the processing time to 180 min and, considering the identification and quantification procedures, the proposed methodology is much simpler and more cost-effective compared to other methods, such as high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and mass spectrometry. The analysis of the results revealed that the maximum concentration of monosaccharides was obtained after hydrolyzing for 90 min. Under such conditions, with pectin being the main component contained in the cactus hydrocolloids analyzed here, galacturonic acid was found in the largest quantities.

An analytic approximation for the flow of a linear Phan-Thien–Tanner model fluid through an axisymmetric semi-hyperbolic contraction is presented. Such an approximation allows us to compute velocity and pressure response for the flow through axisymmetric contraction geometries; in particular, we have considered here the semi-hyperbolic contraction, which is a geometry where an almost constant extension-rate is reached at different radial positions. In addition, we present a semi-analytic solution capable of representing the exponential version of the selected viscoelastic model; this solution was compared to the results of commercial software, demonstrating the excellent approximation level of the semi-analytic model proposed. Alternatively, for both approaches (linear and exponential Phan-Thien–Tanner), the flow model equations are solved by considering the Navier boundary condition, which allows these models to represent flows with some degree of slip at the geometry wall.

It may be assumed that the steady-state kinematics of viscoelastic contraction flows depends on the time-independent rheological properties only. This idea is supported by the large number of references explaining steady simulation results by considering only steady-state material functions. Even with numerical simulations, it would be difficult to prove such a statement wrong. However, using the Bautista-Manero-Puig class of models allows to obtain the same steady rheological response but with different transient evolution. Here, we considered two fluids, one displaying a monotonic trend towards the steady-state and the other with at least one visible overshoot in the material functions. Our results show that for the transient evolution with the overshoot fluid, a significant increase in the steady pressure drop is gathered. In addition, vortex response is quite different for the two fluids. This research gives evidence that the transient evolution in rheometrical functions has great impact on steady-state flow behavior.