William B. Zimmerman, Vaclav Tesar, Simon Butler and Himiyage C.H. Bandulasena
Affiliation: Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Sheffield, Mappin Street, Sheffield S1 3JD, United Kingdom.
Keywords: Microbubble generation, fluidic oscillation, microfluidic microbubble generation, high/low power nucleation
In general, there are three ways of generating microbubbles. The most common class uses compression of the air stream to dissolve air into liquid, which is subsequently released through a specially designed nozzle system, to nucleate small bubbles as potentially nanobubbles, based on the cavitation principle. These bubbles subsequently grow into much larger bubbles through the rapid dissolution of the supersaturated liquid. The second class uses power ultrasound to induce cavitation locally at points of extreme rarefaction in the standing ultrasonic waves. The third class uses an air stream delivered under low offset pressure, and airs to break off the bubbles due to an additional feature, whether it be mechanical vibration, or flow focussing, or fluidic oscillation. Conventional air diffusers rely on the structure of porous material for the nozzles to generate small bubbles, but fluidic oscillation in general promises to break off the forming bubble while it is still a hemispherical cap - the smallest shape for which bubble formation from a pore is likely to occur given the strong adverse affect of surface tension at higher curvatures. The first two classes of microbubble generation are usually associated with high power densities and power consumption by either the compression or ultrasonic treatment. The third class should have the lowest power consumption, provided it achieves the application targets of bubble size distribution, air phase holdup, and bubble dispersion. In this paper, recent patents in microbubble generation are categorized into the first and the third classes above. The subject area is reviewed for its importance in several fields of application, particularly generalized flotation processes and bioreactor treatments.
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