Viscosity of saltwater
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This post was last edited by Liushui Zhiyun shine on 2026-6-9 09:27. These are the data from Table 12.1.17 on page P469 of the \"Handbook of Physical Property Data for Chemicals and Chemical Engineering – Inorganic Volume\". The viscosity of 20% saline at 20°C differs by an order of magnitude between the two tables; Table 1 does not include the 20% concentration, so the average value can be taken from the 18.8% and 21.2% scenarios, which is around 1.5 MPa, whereas it is 15 MPa in Table 2. Same book, same page – how can there be such a big difference?
Under the same operating conditions, the interpolation calculation of 1.6 MPa from the \"Handbook of Physical and Chemical Constants for the Chlor-alkali Industry\" is essentially consistent with the value in Table 1 of the previous book.
This analysis is quite detailed, and I also think that a 10-fold difference is basically due to unit or data-entry issues. One additional point: aside from the conversion between kinematic viscosity and dynamic viscosity, it is sometimes also the case that different sources of the tables are to blame – for example, Table 1 may have been excerpted from other literature without unit conversion, while Table 2 cites the original data directly. If the original poster is able to do so, they could check whether data on saltwater at the same concentration at other temperatures also show similar contradictions; this would allow for reverse verification of where the error lies. Additionally, I recall that in some sections of the \"Handbook of Physical Properties of Chemicals and Materials,\" \"mPa·s\" is mistakenly written as \"Pa·s.\" If the unit in Table 2 is \"Pa·s,\" then 15 mPa·s becomes 0.015 Pa·s, which does not match the 1.5 mPa·s shown in Table 1. Therefore, it’s best to take a close look at the table headers. I hope the original poster finds the correct answer soon~