<< Who has never observed at the surface of a puddle under the rain one bubble that bursts instantly and another one that stays for more than 10 s? >>️
<< Once a bubble has reached an interface, it adopts a static shape that is governed by the balance between the surface tension and buoyancy effects. >>
<< To sum-up, (AA) have presented the state of the art concerning the prediction of the lifetime of surface bubbles. In general, the bubble unstability is linked to two facts: (i) the bubble cap is constituted by a thin film, whose thickness decreases along time due to both drainage and evaporation and (ii) this thin film is unstable and eventually bursts. (AA) have shown that the current understanding is that two different behaviors exist depending on whether the film thins until its thickness reaches a few hundreds of nanometers or bursts at higher thicknesses. In the first case, determinist models that describe the thinning of the film down to a rupture thickness of the order of tenth to hundreds of nanometers perform correctely to calculate the bubbles lifetime. In the second case, the presence of a fatal impurity within the film and its propension to break it being a more random process, lifetime distributions are much more spread and only stochastic models may capture the physical mechanism(s) at play. The scenario depends on whether or not surfactants are present to stabilise the thick film. >>
<< In absence of surfactants, the distribution of lifetimes is given by a Weibull distribution. The bursting mechanism available in the literature involves the diffusion of impurities in the film, which cause the film rupture. Film thinning due to evaporation is likely to be rather negligible in such experiments since its impact is small on thick films. >>
<< In presence of surfactants, the film is expected to thin until its thickness reaches a few tens of nanometers. The prediction of the bubble lifetime thus depends on our ability to predict the thinning rate of the film. It is fixed by the evaporation and the drainage. For tiny bubbles, no stable thin film appears and the evaporation is negligible. The lifetime is fixed by the approach velocity of the bubble to the bath. For bigger bubbles, evaporation and drainage must be taken into account. The evaporation is a constant rate, which depends on external conditions such as atmospheric humidity, on the diffusion/convection ratio and on the chemical potential of the solution. It has been shown that an accurate description of the evaporation rates necessitates to take into account the natural convection. >>
<< The drainage mechanism depends on the viscosity of the solution, on the bubble size and on the surfactants used to stabilise the interfaces. (AA) have identified three main mechanisms. For viscous bubbles, the cap is axisymmetric and the thickness decreases continuously from the bottom to the top of the bubble. The drainage is then expected to be exponential with time. In presence of surfactants, a pinch is expected to appear in the vicinity of the meniscus, which slows down the drainage. The destabilization of this pinch may lead to marginal regeneration, that in turn can affect the drainage. >>
<< Several references show that the drainage and evaporation rates are sufficient to predict the average lifetime of the surfaces bubbles in these different cases. >>
<< Many questions remain open and deserve to be addressed in a near future and (AA) try to list some of them below.
The mechanism at the origin of the eventual bursting of the film, whether they are thick (micrometers) or thin (tens of nanometers) is mostly unknown.
The marginal regeneration phenomenon, the dynamics of the pinch, the origin of its destabilisation and its contribution to drainage are under current investigation.
The impact of the chosen surfactants on bubble drainage and evaporation is crucial but remains an open question.
There is still a lack of data concerning the distributions observed. Additionally, there is no theoretical prediction of the distribution in the presence of surfactants stabilising the interface. >>️
Jonas Miguet, Florence Rouyer, Emmanuelle Rio. The Life of a Surface Bubble. Molecules. 26(5): 1317.
doi: 10.3390/ molecules26051317. Mar 1, 2021.
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