Why is the viscosity of water and ethanol lower than that of a water-ethanol mixture?
This answer just popped up when I searched for viscosity of water-ethanol mixtures, so I just copied the abstract:
Viscosities of Binary and Ternary Mixtures of Water, Alcohol, Acetone, and Hexane
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01932690802313006?journalCode=ldis20
&quot;This articles studied and determined the viscosities of the binary mixtures of water–methanol, water–ethanol, water–propanol, water–acetone, acetone–ethanol, methanol–ethanol, and acetone–hexane and the ternary mixtures of water–methanol–ethanol and water–ethanol–acetone at 20°C. It is shown that the mixing of water with the alcohols and acetone resulted in a positive deviation of viscosity, which reached the maximum value at the water mole fraction x 1 ∼ 0.7 for water–methanol, x 1 ∼ 0.72 for water–ethanol, x 1 ∼ 0.74 for water–propanol, and x 1 ∼ 0.83 for water–acetone binary mixture. This viscosity deviation can be mainly attributed to the formation of micelles of alcohol or acetone molecules in water because of the hydrophobic attraction between the hydrocarbon chains. The micelle surfaces are surrounded by hydration layers, leading to the positive viscosity deviation in the liquid mixtures because the water in hydration layers has a much higher viscosity than bulk water. Also, the contrary observation was found in the binary mixtures of acetone–ethanol and acetone–hexane, having a negative viscosity deviation.&quot;