Looking For A Liquid Substance

I am looking for a common household chemical or food, or some office product that is a liquid, and initially has the consistency of water or seawater. Something with very little viscosity. Over the span of an hour or so, it will have to congeal into a fairly dense, sticky mass, but then quickly break down.

Right now we're looking at using ice or jello, but the problem with those is that it will start out thick. While this would be usable, it would not be preferred. The final, and least appealing, option is to use blood and add TPI to the sample which would simulate exactly what we want, but...we would need blood.

Anyone have any ideas? Any help would be extra groovy!

wats it needed for?

It's tough to know what exactly you are asking for here... But... could you maybe use some water with starch added to it? Kind of like making gravy????????????

[edit on 22-2-2006 by LostSailor]

It's going to be used for testing software that will be interfacing with some hardware. The way the hardware works is fairly simple. There is a relatively heavy skewer that hangs from a wire that is about 2 inches long and thinner than a hair. There is also a holder where this liquid would be placed (inside of a plastic cup) that rotates to the right and left 4 degrees over 10 minutes. What happens is, as the liquid begins to congeal, it grabs hold of both the cup and the skewer that is hanging down. The skewer then begins to rotate slightly, and its movement is registered on an RVIT board, telling the software that there is a clot forming in the liquid. As this clot becomes stronger, the skewer rotates more, and if the liquid breaks down, the RVIT board sends this information to the computer as well.

In the past, we have been able to simulate this breakdown simply by removing the sample while the software is still reading the data. Because the software makes calculations based on this breakdown, it must be tested. If we simply bring down the carrier and the clot is too strong, it could damage or even break the wire. As such, we need to find a substance that will replicate the formation and breakdown of the clot all within a closed system. We have the blood with TPI option that causes blood to start breaking down after about 30 minutes, but I really don't want to have to set up a clean room environment to test our software in. I've managed to prevent that from having to happen in the past 2 releases, and I want to be able to sip at my Coke while I'm testing this stuff

A graphical depiction of the technology can be found here if my description is lacking...Which it is.

[edit on 2-24-2006 by Springer]

Hmmmm... Ok my idea wouldn't work... I think as it rotated faster it would just make it thicker. But...


There has to be some kind of plastic or silicone type substance out there that will do what you're asking. The question is... Can get your hands on it, if it does exist?

[edit on 22-2-2006 by LostSailor]

And would my company pay for it We were thinking of taking a small capsule and placing in it some kind of solvent that breaks down an epoxy. Then we'd put in a two part epoxy that forms in about 2 hours, so that, hopefully, the capsule would degrade enough to release the solvent before the epoxy hardens. The problem is finding a capsule small enough that it would fit comfortably in the cup without getting in the pin's way, and ensuring the capsule would break down in that environment.

OK... Just throwing some thoughts around here. Maybe something will come of this. Who knows?

Have you guys thought about paint? I know it doesn't congeal uniformly like blood. But it does harden over time... and liquify again if stirred. Or am I just speaking rubbish?

What about Coca Cola consentrate? It's the stuff they use in Tap drawn cola. When I accidentally burst on of these bags it congealed pretty quickly heh.

What about Fondont? You know the stuff that Donuts are dipped in? You need heat as well to break it up so that may be out. Though if you keep stirring the stuff it will keep loose...sort of.

[edit on 22-2-2006 by sardion2000]

That would make sense, except the skewer is smoothed down so as to have minimal impact on the actual blood. This is also why the total movement of the cup is only 8 degrees -- stirring blood will prevent the fibrin from bonding with the platelets, or will break those bonds right away. While it might be possible to attach some kind of stirring device, even something as simple as a twist tie, how would we get the paint to begin to harden then be stirred without opening up the bond and attaching the stirring device.

Keep the ideas coming, though!

sardion,

From what I understand... Through reading jakes link. There is a heating element on the unit.

I don't know if this will help..It may give you an idea though..

Water, with a heavy load of cornstarch, will change viscosity when you put a load on it..Problem is you need a constant moving load. When an object is moved rapidly through the mixture, it behaves almost like a solid. When the object is moved slowly, it behaves as a liquid..

So you could change charcteristics, by changing speeds..


[edit on 22-2-2006 by spacedoubt]

OK... I think this is way out of my league. All I can do is ask if you have ever heard of the KISS principle. It is a very complicated and delicate idea. It is tough to follow but sometimes nets the best results. Keep It Simple Stupid.

Unfortunately, the motor rotating the carriers is not of a variable speed. Also, the heating elements in the carriers simulate body temp. They're not designed to go over something like 110 F, and will melt the plastic carriers if they overheat .

I see this thread died pretty quickly. Just curious if you guys worked anything out yet? I honestly would have to say you might have to set up a clean room. I just don't think you can replicate something as complicated and unique as blood.

I'm thinking of cooking materials because they are fairly cheap and reproducible. . . .

1. A sugar solution that cools. More sugar stays in solution in a hot medium. as it cools it crystalizes. Sort of like how they make cotton candy or caramel. If you DON"T caramelize it, it will go back to being crystals.

2. Water with very little sugar in it, and add some yeast. The yeast will grow and make air sacs, which will give the structure of dough, even in a very runny slurry. Bread yeast is bottom fermenting (as opposed to beer yeast, which is top fermenting.) So originally, it would be out of the way of the skewer.

3. I'm trying to think of something that uses alcohol as a solvent, since alcohol boils at a mere 143 F. It's specific Gravity is LOWER than water. So that when it left the solution, you'd get some thickness. Maybe a kind of paint where alcohol is the thinner, and heating it causes the alcohol to evaporate, leaving the thicker paint behind.

4. You know you can get plenty of bovine blood from a meatpacking plant, right? They have a superabundance of the stuff.

Alcohol.... that reminds me of certain types of hair styling liquids, they're very viscose when you first apply it but will gel up after a while. Shouldn't be too hard to find the kind of hair styling liquid I'm talking about. I think L'Oreal's got something like what you're looking for from their Studio FX line. Wella too, probably.

The problem isn't with developing the thicker substance. We have lypholized bovine plasma controls for that; it's the breakdown we need to simulate.

However, it now appears we've come up with an electrical solution. We're going to be able to simulate the samples by using a different program to plug the data into our software from one of those samples displaying lysis. Thanks for all the ideas, though. If there's one thing this board really excels at, it's creativity!

Try oil based printers ink. You can add thinners, if you need to just to help get things started.