Scaling laws and the critical phenomenon analysis in polymer-like micellar solutions
M. Munoz [1], J.E. Puig [1], O. Manero [2], F. Bautista [3]

[1] Universidad de Guadalajara, Chemical Engineering, [2] Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Instituto de Investigacion en Materiales, [3] Universidad de Guadalajara, Physics, Centro de Ensenanza Tecnica Industrial

Abstract: The shear-banding flow phenomenon in polymer-like micellar solutions is examined here with the reduced Bautista-Manero-Puig (BMP) model. The model predicts a master flow diagram, in which all data collapse at low shear rates, and exhibits a critical point. Moreover, the model predicts that a non-equilibrium critical line is reached upon decreasing the shear banding intensity parameter, which corresponds to increasing temperature, increasing surfactant concentration or varying salt-to-surfactant concentration. By using non-equilibrium critical theory, the generalized dissipated energy and the scaling laws, a set of symmetrical reduced stress versus reduced shear rate curves is obtained, similar to gas-liquid transitions around the critical point. In addition, we have derived the properties near the critical point, the non-equilibrium critical exponents and found that they are non classical. The model has only two independent dimensionless constants.