Viscosity of food products is critical for the development

and understanding of manufacturing processes but also,

BENEFITS OF VROC® SOLUTIONS
as a quality control parameter to establish the mouth Features include:
feel [1]. Viscosity determines, among other factors, how  Accuracy: 2% of reading.
much energy is required to pump these products and
 Repeatability: 0.5% of reading.
the texture experienced by consumers. Mouth feel can
be just as important as flavor when differentiating a  Smallest sample volume.
product! In this application we summarize results for  Viscosity range: 0.2 – 100,000 mPa-s.
some common food items that have been tested using  Shear Rate range: 0.5 – 1,400,000 1/s
VROC® systems over the past years.
 Temperature control: 4–70°C
Test Materials & Applications VROC® Technology and Principle of Operation
In this study we present viscosity measurements for six
different samples that can be found in any grocery store
(or in your home fridge!). Details are summarized below:
 Chocolate and strawberry syrups (by HERSEY’S®).
Syrups make things delicious! Due to the high sugar
content, one would expect higher viscosity for these
two samples.
 Orange and pineapple juices (by Tropicana and
Nestle®). Orange juice was a little too pulpy, so the
RheoSense’s Viscometer-Rheometer-on-a-Chip (VROC®)
samples used in this report went through a 75 µm
combines a microfluidic channel with a MEMS pressure
filter before going into VROC® chips.
sensor array to measure viscosity. As the test fluid flows
 Nesquik and coffee-mate (by Nestle®). People love through the channel the sensor array captures the
these things and we do too, so we decided to test
pressure drop, which is proportional to the shear stress at
them!
the wall. The shear rate is calculated from the flow rate
and the channel dimensions. The viscosity of the test fluid
is obtained as the ratio of shear stress to shear rate.

Figure 1. Viscosity versus shear rate for syrups, juices and dairy products. (a) Chocolate and strawberry syrups. (b) Orange
and pineapple juice. (c) Coffee-mate and Nesquik.
 Figure 2. Viscosity-temperature dependence for dairy Nesquik and Coffee-mate. (a) Viscosity versus shear rate at 4, 25
and 40 °C. (b) Viscosity versus temperature for Nesquik measured at 2000 1/s.
Testing Protocol:
Either microVISC™ or m-VROC® platforms were used to
test the samples in this report:
1. Loading: Test sample is loaded into a syringe/pipette
and inserted into the pumping system.
2. Measuring: RheoSense’s user friendly software
allows measurements of viscosity as a function of
shear rate and/or temperature.
3. Cleaning: One syringe/pipette of appropriate
cleaning solvent is run through the flow path
between different samples and after testing.
Shear Rate Dependence
Many edibles present non-Newtonian behavior. In fact, we
observe shear thinning (i.e. viscosity decreases with
increasing shear rate) for all the samples in Figure 1 with
the only exception of coffee-mate. These results
demonstrate how important is to properly characterize the
rheological behavior of food products since the shear rate
that is relevant for the fabrication process is often much
higher than the characteristic shear rates exerted during
eating and drinking.
Temperature Dependence
Additionally, viscosity of these complex fluids strongly
depends on temperature. VROC® systems feature the
capability of running automated temperature sweeps. This
makes them ideal to study, not only viscosity as a function
of temperature, but also how degradation due to thermal
cycling will affect these consumables.
In Figure 2 (a), we present viscosity versus shear rate at
different temperatures for both Nesquik and Coffee-mate.
In Figure 2 (b), we present the viscosity of Nesquik during
a thermal cycle between 4 and 40 °C. Note that the
viscosity of this sample is significantly higher in storage
conditions (4 °C) than it is during “use” at body
temperature (37 °C).
Summary
In this technical note, we demonstrate the suitability of
VROC® systems for the characterization of the rheological
behavior of fluid foods over a wide range of shear rates
and temperatures. Our technology is ideal for this type of
application, thanks to the wide dynamic range and
temperature control capabilities.
If you would like more information about the viscosity of
what you are eating and drinking, our products and other
applications, please contact us:
Main office — 1 (925)-866-3801
Information — info@rheosense.com
Sales — sales@rheosense.com
Bibliography
[1] B. M. M. J. G. Lyng, Introduction to food rheology
and its measurement, 2003.