Decoupling mass adsorption from fluid viscosity and density in quartz crystal microbalance measurements using normalized conductance modeling

We describe the physical understanding of a method which differentiates between the frequency shift caused by fluid viscosity and density from that caused by mass adsorption in the resonance of a quartz crystal resonator. This method uses the normalized conductance of the crystal to determine a critical frequency at which the fluid mass and fluid loss compensate each other. Tracking the shift in this critical frequency allows us to determine purely mass adsorption on the crystal. We extended this method to Maxwellian fluids for understanding the mass adsorption in non-Newtonian fluids. We validate our approach by real-time mass adsorption measurements using glycerol and albumin solutions. © 2013 IOP Publishing Ltd.