Comparative analysis of the association of some physical variables between commercially Available and homeproduced oral rehydration solution samples

Abstract

Diarrheal is a child killer disease which is capable of causing a great loss of volume of fluid and electrolytes when it occurs. It is therefore necessary to secure a mechanism of replacing the lost fluid from a diarrheal impaired person, whenever it occurs. This study is therefore sought to measure the values of some variables of commercially available and home-produced oral rehydration solution samples, investigated within the temperature range of 0 to 60°C. The physicochemical variables investigated in this study include viscosity, pH, electrical conductivity, electric potential and total dissolved solid (TDS). The viscosity measurements were carried out by means of U-TUBE ASTM D445 viscometer within the temperature range in this study. The pH and electrical potential values were obtained using pH/Electric Potential (mV) meter SUNTEX SP-701 and electrical conductivity meter, HACH CO-150 was used to measure the electrical conductivity of the samples of oral rehydration solutions from which, the values of the total dissolved solid were calculated. The results obtained reveal that there were significant differences in the measured viscosity and electrical conductivity of the samples at the temperature range of investigation in this study, with the viscosity ranging from
0.52±0.01 to 1.48±0.01 and 0.76±0.01 to 1.52±0.01 mPas for HPORS and CPORS, respectively and electrical conductivity ranging from 5.28 to 13.26 and 2.03 to 9.01 mS/cm for HPORS and CPORS,respectively. The total dissolved solid was observed to be greatly dependent on the electrical conductivity of the samples and the effect of temperature on pH of the samples was quite spelt out. The activation energy values for the samples were estimated from the viscosity measurements as 7.51 kJ mol-1 for the commercially available oral rehydration solution and 7.48 kJ mol-1 for the home-produced oral rehydration solution using the activation energy equation of Arrhenius. The high electrical conductivity of the home-produced rehydration solution could be indicative of low quality due to the quality of the salt and water used to prepare the ORS sample.