HOMOGENEOUS NUCLEATION AND MACROSCOPIC GROWTH OF GAS BUBBLE IN ORGANIC SOLUTIONS

This work concerns the spontaneous gas bubble nucleation after rapid d ecompression in organic solution initially saturated with dissolved ga s and the subsequent bubble growth to macroscopic size. The decompress ion limit for gas bubble formation was obtained from the stability con dition of the critical cluster of dissolved gas molecules. This work a lso clarifies how the critical cluster grows to the critical size bubb le, the first object which is separated from liquid molecules by inter face. Further growing of this critical size bubble by diffusion proces s was treated by an integral method for the concentration boundary lay er thickness. The calculation values of the amount of decompression fo r the homogeneous gas bubble formation inorganic solutions and the tim e required for the birth of macroscopic bubble size are in reasonable agreement with experimental results. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.