AbstractThe study of peristaltic flow of a Carreau fluid in a non‐uniform tube under the consideration of long wavelength in the presence of heat and mass transfer is presented. The flow is investigated in a wave frame of reference moving with velocity of the wave c. Two types of analytical solutions have been evaluated (i) perturbation method (ii) homotopy analysis method for velocity, temperature and concentration field. Numerical integration have been used to obtain the graphical results for pressure rise and frictional forces. The effects of various emerging parameters are investigated for five different peristaltic waves. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.