Quick and dirty viscosity measures

[ayjay]

Hi Brainiacs,

I have the opportunity to conduct some tests at work on safer injection of unisom gel caps and suboxone strips. These products are commonly injected by our clients and can cause significant vein damage. Given that this practice is unlikely to cease, it behooves us to explore safer injecting options.

In both instances, the injection solution can be of increased viscosity due to inclusion of the gel casing (gel caps) or the gel substrate (film). We are going to play around with a few methods to minimise such inclusion and I'm interested in some rough measures to compare viscosity.

We are a busy needle syringe program so I have good access to needles, syringes, micron filters, cotton, sterifilts and so on. But no lab equipment.

I thought maybe I could do some kind of drip test down an inclined surface (like a glazed tile or similar or sheet of perspex) - comparing the injection solution against a water control. The more viscous the solution, the longer it should take for a drop to traverse the inclined surface.

Would that work? Any other ideas?

 

[sekio]

Buy a viscometer. You won't be able to get a quantitative measurement of viscosity by eyeballing beads of liquid and rolling them down a slope.

 

[ayjay]

That's a good idea in an ideal world -but let's just imagine I've got zero budget (I actually do have zero budget so easy to imagine from my side). I'm not buying a viscometer. Is there really nothing else I can do? I don't need a quantitative measure, just a comparative one. Looks like I'll be going with my slopometer.

I'm convinced there will be a way to do this. To give an analogous situation - back in the 80s I worked as a chemist doing QA on analytical to food grade reagents. The standard test for lead against the grade limit was to make up a solution with the maximum lead level and compare to reagent sample. I believe the test involved HCN to cause a colour change. The resulting solutions were eyeballed to see if the reagent sample went darker or lighter than control. Simple and low tech.

 

[SeenSoFar]

If you are sure to make the beads of liquid of identical volume, such as by dispensing them from a syringe, I think your method might just work. Although its far from accurate, you should be able to get a rough idea of widely varying viscosities, although comparing two fluids that vary only slightly in their viscosity is probably a no-go.

Let me just say though that I think its fantastic you are attempting such a thing! Its great to see this type of harm reduction work being done by those most likely to be able to get the word out to those who need to hear it. Here in my city, we have North America's only safe injection site, and I often find myself wishing that such things would be available to people in other locations. I think work like this is a huge step in the right direction! Keep it up!

 

[Psychedelic Jay]

Quantitatively, no... This is numerical data. It can be measured.

Qualitatively, yes... This is just observation... Educated guessing...

This is just incase someone were to come along who isn't so good at either science or english... Good thing for my english skills...