Flow and mass transfer on a stretching sheet with a magnetic field and chemically reactive species

An analysis has been carried out to obtain the flow and mass transfer characteristics of a viscous electrically conducting fluid on a continuously stretching surface with non-zero slot velocity. The motion is caused solely by the stretching surface which introduces non-similarity in the velocity and concentration fields. The partial differential equations governing the boundary layer flow and mass transfer are solved by using an implicit finite-difference scheme. The magnetic field significantly increases the surface skin friction, but slightly reduces the surface mass transfer. The surface mass transfer strongly depends on the Schmidt number and the reaction rate and it increases with their increasing values. The surface mass transfer for the first-order reaction is more than that for the second- or-third-order reaction. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.