2014 Volume 77 Issue 5 Pages 445-446
Carhue is the largest thermal center of the province of Buenos Aires, located 520 kilometers from the state capital. The thermal baths and the treatments with the lake’s peloids have become an emblem of the city. Since 1920 visitors from around the world have come to this place to enjoy the benefits of the mineral waters from Epecuen Lake.
Objective: The objective of this work is the physicochemical study of the Carhue peloid.
Material and Method: A commercial peloid sample, The percentage of the solid components, water and ashes was determined by gravimetric techniques drying the sample in oven and mufla. The specific heat, thermal conductivity coefficient and calorific retentivity were calculated from these data.
The particle size was determined by laser diffraction, using the model 3000 of Malvern Instruments Mastersizer.
The instrumental texture was determined with the Brookfield LFRA, Texture Analyzer, model 1000 LFRA LRFA. The Rambaud method was the technic used to obtain the cooling curve, with thermostatic baths, Lauda, RA 8 Alpha and E-100 and thermocouple Cole-Parmer, model 91100-50.
Results: (Table 1)
Conclusions: Its water percentage (47.4%) allow us classify this product as a true peloid.
From the relation ash / solid (0.90) it follows that is a peloid rich in inorganic products.
The particle size indicates that there are particles ranging 0.6 to 120 microns, with Dv(50) of 10.5 microns but with scarce uniformity.
Specific heat and retentivity values are agree with the obtained percentage values of water and ashes.
The value tr (8.7 minutes) shows a peloid with slow release of heat, matching up with the data of their retentivity 7.74 106 s/m2.
According to its texture is a soft peloid (64.7 g) with good cohesion capacity (0.96) so it is an easy product to use.
