Surface tension in trehalose and maltose aqueous mixtures by means of acoustic levitation

In this paper, a study on surface tension in trehalose and maltose aqueous mixtures by means of acoustic levitation is presented and tested. More in detail, diameter measurements for the acoustically levitated drops are performed by an OH/CH area ratio analysis of infrared spectra collected as a function of time to determine the evaporation rate coefficient, that is inversely proportional to surface tension. Then, the evaluation approach is tested by contact angle measurement methods. In conjunction with infrared spectroscopy, acoustic levitation reveals to be an effective approach for the study of surface tension. Furthermore, the experimental results show how the surface tension is higher for trehalose in respect to maltose.