Influence of the impurity content on the density and viscosity of olive oily fluids

Abstract

In this work, as a case study, the measurement of the density (ρ) and the dynamic viscosity (μ) of 12 different fluids (taken from a conventional oil mill) has been carried out. The variability of the samples processed shows that their impurity contents c (between 0.5–5.87%), together with the temperature t (which varied between 20–30 ºC), can affect the values of ρ and μ. How-ever, this variation has been shown to be different depending on the case, being of the order of 1% for density or even more than 50% for dynamic viscosity. The fact that μ can be sensitive to the presence of impurities opens up a line of study that could be used to estimate such impuritiy content, in real time, by means of relatively simple methods.