Liquid films microlayering

The basic mechanism of dryout almost invariably involves the rupture of a residual thin liquid film, either as a microlayer underneath the bubbles or as a thin annular layer in a high-quality burnout scenario. Bankoff (1994), in his brief review of significant progress in understanding the behavior of such thin films, discussed some significant questions that still remain to be answered. 

New experimental techniques and several of their applications were presented which help in the understanding of structure, texture and stability of food systems. For future research, the mechanism of film stability by the microlayering of colloid particles seems to be the most promising - especially in food emulsions and foams. Work is in progress in our laboratory to calculate the oscillatory disjoining pressure inside liquid films containing microlayers [30],... 

In aqueous surface microlayers and in surface films caused by discharges of hydrophobic liquids, it is likely that higher concentrations of oxygen are present. Because of its nonpolar nature, oxygen is several times more soluble in organic media than in water. In liquid hydrocarbon solvents, its solubility is about eightfold higher than in water, and in a dispersion of lipids in water, its solubility was increased by about a factor of 5 (Smotkin et al., 1991). 

While a bubble expands or contracts in a liquid, mechanical work is transferred between the bubble and the surrotmding liquid. The kinetic energy transferred from the expanding vapor microlayer on a thin-film heater surface could be used, in principle, to drive electromechanical microdevices such as microactuators and... 

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