Cavitation microbubbles

Figure 9.21 Liquid flow through an orifice plate. Note turbulent flow conditions downstream generated by the high pressure loss - also causing the local pressure to drop below the vapor pressure producing cavitation (microbubbles).

Shchukin DG, Mohwald H. Sonochemical nanosynthesis at the engineered interface of a cavitation microbubble. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. 2006 8(30) 3496-3506. 

Phosgene hydrolysis in water is rq>id (34) under anibient conditions and die rate constant is positively correlated with increasing ten rature. Thus, the hydrolysis of tins intermediate can be enhanced by die occurrence of siqiercritical water durii cavitational microbubble collapse ... 

The use of ultrasonic (US) radiation (typical range 20 to 850 kHz) to accelerate Diels-Alder reactions is undergoing continuous expansion. There is a parallelism between the ultrasonic and high pressure-assisted reactions. Ultrasonic radiations induce cavitation, that is, the formation and the collapse of microbubbles inside the liquid phase which is accompanied by the local generation of high temperature and high pressure [29]. Snyder and coworkers [30] published the first ultrasound-assisted Diels-Alder reactions that involved the cycloadditions of o-quinone 37 with appropriate dienes 38 to synthesize abietanoid diterpenes A-C (Scheme 4.7) isolated from the traditional Chinese medicine, Dan Shen, prepared from the roots of Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge. 

Cavitations generate several effects. On one hand, both stable and transient cavitations generate turbulence and liquid circulation - acoustic streaming - in the proximity of the microbubble. This phenomenon enhances mass and heat transfer and improves (micro)mixing as well. In membrane systems, increase of fiux through the membrane and reduction of fouling has been observed [56]. 

The ultrasonic irradiation of a solution induces acoustic cavitation, a transient process that promotes chemical activity. Acoustic cavitation is generated by the growth of preexisting nuclei during the alternating expansion and compression cycles of ultrasonic waves. For example, in aqueous liquid, temperatures as high as 4300 K and pressures over 1000 atm are estimated to exist within each gas- and vapor-filled microbubble following an adiabatic collapse (Didenko et. al. 1999). 

The detailed work of Bernd (ref. 15-17) and other investigators has also shown that the tensile strength of water is set by the gas nuclei (i.e., microbubbles) present in the water. (Accordingly, the earlier-mentioned definition of the tensile strength of a liquid can be restated as the minimum tensile stress at which the gas nuclei in the liquid start to explode . This property is also often referred to as the cavitation susceptibility (ref. 57).) Using specially constructed sonar transducers, the behavior of gas nuclei was followed by Bernd by measuring tensile strength. Surface... 

Hence, in practical flow situations the water is not pure gas bubbles and small impurities are embedded within the liquid. Small gas bubbles can stay in suspension for a long time, because the relative motion in an upward direction due to gravity is opposed by transport in the downwards direction by turbulent diffusion (ref. 57). These microbubbles are initially trapped in the liquid mostly by jet entrainment, cavitation, and/or strong turbulence at a gas/liquid (usually air/water) interface (ref. 58). 

Sirotyuk (ref. 25) found that the complete removal of solid particles from a sample of water increased the tensile strength by at most 30 percent, indicating that most of the gas nuclei present in high purity water are not associated with solid particles. Bernd (ref. 15,16) observed that gas phases stabilized in crevices are not usually truly stable, but instead tend to dissolve slowly. This instability is due to imperfections in the geometry of the liquid/gas interface, which is almost never exactly flat (ref. 114). Medwin (ref. 31,32) attributed the excess ultrasonic attenuation and backscatter measured in his ocean experiments to free microbubbles rather than to particulate bodies this distinction was based on the fact that marine microbubbles in resonance, but prior to ultrasonic cavitation (ref. 4), have acoustical scattering and absorption cross sections that are several orders of magnitude greater than those of particulate bodies (see Section 1.1.2). 

In line with discussions included in previous sections, ultrasonic experiments carried out on fresh water by different investigators indicate that the stabilization of gas microbubbles, acting as gas nuclei for ultrasonic cavitation, is always attributable to the presence of surface-active substances in the water (ref. 15-17,25). As a starting point, one should consider that laboratory tests with various tap waters, distilled waters, and salt solutions have shown that no water sample was ever encountered that did not contain at least traces of surface-active material (ref. 46). Sirotyuk (ref. 25) estimates that the content of surface-active substances in ordinary distilled water amounts to 10 7 mole/liter, and in tap water it is 10"6 mole/liter or higher. These values indicate the appreciable content of such substances in both cases (ref. 122), although they differ by roughly an order of magnitude in absolute value. It is essentially impossible to completely remove... 

There is other acoustical evidence to support the belief of Sirotyuk and other investigators that stable microbubbles serve as cavitation nuclei in fresh water. As noted by Sirotyuk (ref. 25), numerous experiments have disclosed that the cavitation threshold of water is increased by degassing of the liquid or by the... 

From such microbubble-dissolution measurements, Bemd (ref. 16,17) outlined a physical model to explain much of the dynamic behavior of film-stabilized microbubbles.- One problematic aspect of this dynamic behavior involved the question of how a gas nucleus can be surrounded by a relatively impermeable film and yet subsequently act to produce cavitation when a gas/water interface is needed to initiate cavitation. Bernd (ref. 16) explains that if the stabilized gas microbubble enters a low-pressure area, the gas within the microbubble will attempt to expand. The surfactant film may also elastically attempt to expand. The surfactant film will then be expanded until essentially the surface tension of the water alone acts to contract the microbubble, since the protective shell no longer acts. The film has either been ruptured upon expansion, or it has expanded until it is ineffectual. Thus the microbubble (i.e., gas nucleus) should be capable of expanding to form a cavitation void or acquire additional gas in the form of water vapor or from surrounding dissolved gas. In addition, Bernd points out that it is reasonable to expect a gas microbubble to acquire such an effective... 

More recent light-scattering studies (ref. 26,59,60) of microbubble populations in fresh water, using laser-light sources, have yielded very similar results. For example, Keller s laser-scattered-light technique (ref. 26) provided precise measurements of the size and number of freestream gas nuclei (i.e., long-lived microbubbles) in a cavitation tunnel from microbubble spectra... 

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