Abstract: The effect of chemical reaction on free convection heat and mass transfer for a non-Newtonian power law fluid over a vertical flat plate embedded in a fluid-saturated porous medium has been studied in the presence of the yield stress and the Soret effect. The governing boundary layer equations and boundary conditions are cast into a dimensionless form by similarity transformations, and the resulting system of equations is solved by a finite difference method. The results are presented and discussed for concentration profiles, as well as the Nusselt number and the Sherwood number for various values of the parameters, which govern the problem. The results obtained show that the flow field is influenced appreciably by the presence of the chemical reaction parameter γ, the order of the chemical reaction parameter m, the Soret number S_r, the buoyancy ratio N, the Lewis number Le, and the dimensionless rheological parameter Ω.

Key words: non-Newtonian fluid, free convection, chemical reaction, yield stress, Soret effect