b'TALENT PIPELINE: The slurry model is based on a novel mesoscale dissipative particle dynamics Carl Fredrik Mikael Karlsson, INL postdoc method that accounts for both the physical and chemical characteristics of a slurry system through the particle-particle and particle-fluid interactions. The dissipative particle dynamics model can be used to probe how the changes in the particle-fluid interactions alter slurry viscosity of a complex non-Newtonian fluid system.This research used capillary rheology experiments to show how different treatments lower viscosity by over 150x or increase it by 2x. Torrefaction made pine particles so friable that the small final particle size and hydrophobicity cause the sample to flow much more smoothly in the capillary system. Dimethyl ether pretreatment of pine to remove extractives increased the sample viscosity by a factor of two compared to the control sample despite having statistically identical particle sizes. Biological degradation of the corn stover decreased viscosity by about a factor of three compared to the control stover, which bodes well for improving the viscosity of industrial samples like the solids left over after anaerobic digestion.77'