Background: Bile, which is secreted by the liver, is essential for digesting fat and maintaining homeostasis. Although the rheology of bile is very important to its flow, its extensional viscosity has not been studied.
Objective: We investigated the stretching of bile and evaluated its extensional viscosity using a filament-breakup device.
Methods: A liquid bridge formed between the endplates of the filament-breakup device. The midpoint diameter of the bridge was recorded by a laser micrometer. The filament self-thinning was captured by a high-resolution, high-speed camera. We used the liquid bridge diameter to evaluate the extensional viscosity of bile.
Results: All samples show shear-thinning and viscoelasticity. Bile sediment has much greater viscosity and stretches more than bile solution. Filament thinning takes a long time for bile sediment and a short time for solution. The global function for the mid-filament diameter can be used to predict the evolution of the filament diameter of the liquid bridge and the trend of the extensional viscosity of bile.
Conclusions: The extensional viscosity of bile is much greater than its shear viscosity. Because mucus concentration makes bile sediment more viscous than the solution, bile viscosity can increase sharply, thereby increasing risks of such diseases as gallstones and sludge buildup in the biliary system.
Keywords: Stretching; filament liquid bridge; mucus; shear-thinning.