Effect of Amplitude on the Surface Dilational Visco-Elasticity of Protein Solutions

Harmonic drop surface area oscillations are performed at a fixed frequency (0.1 Hz) to measure the dilational visco-elasticity for three proteins: &beta
casein (BCS), &beta
lactoglobulin (BLG), and human serum albumin (HSA). The surface area oscillations were performed with different amplitudes in order to find the origin of non-linearity effects. The analysis of data shows that the non-linearity in the equation of state&mdash
i.e., the relation between surface pressure and surface concentration of adsorbed protein molecules&mdash
is the main source of the amplitude effects on the apparent visco-elasticity, while perturbations due to non-uniform expansions and compressions of the surface layer, inertia effects leading to deviations of the drop profile from the Laplacian shape, or convective transport in the drop bulk are of less importance. While for the globular proteins, HSA and BLG the amplitude effects on the apparent visco-elasticity are rather large, for the non-globular protein BCS this effect is negligible in the studied range of up to 10% area deformation.