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What are Nanobubbles?

By Will SoutterJan 7 2013


Topics Covered

Introduction
Properties of Nanobubbles
Applications of Nanobubbles
Recent Developments
Conclusion
Sources

Introduction

The growing significance of nanotechnology has now led to the development of nanobubbles,
which is drawing a lot of attention from a variety of fields. Nanobubbles play a vital role
in many sectors that include scientific research, medical and food sectors. This article will
talk about the properties, applications and recent developments related to nanobubbles.

Nanobubbles at the interface between hydrophobic silica and water. Image credit: Virginia
Tech

Properties of Nanobubbles

The small size of nanobubbles gives them much more interesting properties than larger
bubbles, due to their high specific area and high stagnation features in the liquid phase.
Free-radical generation occurs when micro- and nano-sized bubbles collapse due to the high
density of ions at the gas-liquid interface that develops prior to the collapse.

It has been shown that nano-bubbles cannot remain in a stable state under atmospheric
pressure due to extremely high internal pressure.

Following a number of experiments, it has been suggested that the typical lifespan for a
gas bubble with 100nm radius would be around 100 µs.

In saturated liquids, these nano-bubbles are extremely stable due to the absorption of ions
on their surface. The gas molecules inside the nanobubbles do not come in contact with
the bulk liquid, allowing the nanobubbles to last for a much longer time. Larger bubbles
have air that is above atmospheric pressure, but nanobubbles contain internal pressures of
tens or even hundreds of atmospheres. Under such high pressures, it has been proven that
the liquid absorbs the gas inside the nanobubbles.

Applications of Nanobubbles

Some of the applications of nanobubbles which have been explored to date are listed
below:

 Acceleration of metabolism in vegetables and shellfishes


 Microfluidics
 Water treatment by flotation - their high specific area makes them useful in this
field
 Contrast agents for ultrasonography
 Sterilization using ozone gas
 Foam products in the food industry and other products requiring bubble stability.
 Nutritional supplement carrier in the food industry

Related Stories

 Nanowires Defined - What Nanowires Are, What They Are Made From and How They
Are Used
 Visualizing, Sizing and Counting Nanobubbles Using Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis
 Nanobubbles Becoming the Subject of an Increasing Amount of Study
Rice University researchers used nanobubbles to enhance chemotherapy treatments,
enabling targeting of single cancer cells with the drugs.

Recent Developments

Physicists in the Netherlands recently demonstrated the prolonged stability of nanobubbles


on wet surfaces - their nanobubbles remained stable for several days. These physicists went
on to compare these tiny bubbles to the bubbles found in a champagne or beer glass. They
arrived at a conclusion that the longevity of these bubbles is mainly because of two
significant physical properties:

1. The gas molecules on the surface of the bubble leaves the surface in a perpendicular
direction
2. The gas molecules generally move from one side of the bubble to the other side
without touching each other because of the small size of these nanobubbles. This
movement allows free flow of the liquid along the bubbles and in turn pushes the
gas molecules to the surface of these small bubbles, thus increasing their stability.

Researchers at UC Berkeley discovered that graphene can sprout nanobubbles which make
electrons behave as though they are moving in a very strong magnetic field. This image
shows nanobubbles formed in a graphene patch on a platinum substrate. Image credit: UC
Berkeley News Center.
Physicists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley discovered that
nanobubbles can be formed when graphene is stretches in a particular manner. Nanobubbles
formed in this way will have electrons that behave in a very strange manner - as if they
were moving in a very strong magnetic field.
Recently, the medical field has also seen major discoveries relating to nanobubbles.
Researchers from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Rice University and
Baylor College of Medicine are concentrating on the development of new techniques to
directly inject genetic payloads and drugs into cancer cells.

These researchers found that this new nanobubble injection mechanism ignores the healthy
cells, favouring cancer cells. They showed that the delivery of chemotherapy drugs with
nanobubbles is 30 times more effective at killing cancer cells, reducing the required dosage
compared to conventional treatment.

In another experiment, scientists at Rice University developed a cancer treatment


technique using lasers to zap nanoparticles inside the cells, creating nanobubbles. These
nanobubbles are formed when the short laser pulses strike the gold nanoparticles, and
cause damage to the cancer cells. This experiment was focused on identifying and treating
cancer cells in the initial stages.

Conclusion

All these discoveries highlight the wide spread applications of nanobubbles in various fields.
Nanobubbles due to their very small size and high stability can be very useful in treating
cancer, simplifying technical operations and can even act as a nutritional supplement carrier
in the food industry. These applications emphasize the growing significance and demand for
nanobubbles in all walks of life.

Sources

 "Evidence of the existence and the stability of nano-bubbles in water" - F.Y.


Ushikubo et al, Colloids Surf. A: Physicochem. Eng. Aspects, 2010.
DOI: 10.1016/j.colsurfa.2010.03.005
 Flowing Gas Helps Nanobubbles Stick Around - Physics World
 Graphene exhibits bizarre new behavior well-suited to electronic devices - UC
Berkeley
 ‘Nanobubbles’ plus chemotherapy equals single-cell cancer targeting - Rice University
 Rice physicists kill cancer with ‘nanobubbles’ - Rice University
Flowing gas helps nanobubbles stick around
12 Sep 2011 Hamish Johnston

Onwards and upwards in a nanobubble

Physicists in the Netherlands say they have explained the mystery of why tiny
nanobubbles on wet surfaces can endure for weeks, despite having extremely high internal
pressures.

Unlike the air in larger bubbles, which is just slightly above atmospheric pressure, physicists
know that nanobubbles have internal pressures of tens or even hundreds of atmospheres.
At such pressures, the conventional model of diffusion suggests that all the gas inside
these tiny bubbles should be absorbed by the liquid in a few microseconds. So when
nanobubbles were first spotted a decade ago, physicists were left puzzled by the fact that
they hang around for weeks.

But the Seddon group’s new calculations and experiments could explain why. Its theory
relies on two important physical properties of the system:

- One is that the nanobubbles are so small that a gas molecule will usually travel
from one side of a bubble to the other without colliding with any other gas
molecule.
- The other is that a gas molecule sticking to the surface inside the bubble is
most likely to leave the surface in the perpendicular direction.

Flowing fountain

According to Seddon’s team, what happens first is that such gas molecules move away from
the solid surface and towards the liquid interface of the bubble. But because they do not
collide along the way, all the molecules are moving in approximately the same direction when
they strike the edge of the bubble. This imparts a momentum to the liquid at the interface,
causing liquid to flow along the bubble away from the solid surface.

The gas molecules get caught up in this flow and are swept towards the apex of the bubble.
At this point the flow leaves the bubble and loops back down to the solid surface, bringing
the gas molecules with it – and creating a fountain-like effect. But instead of going with
the flow back along the bubble, the gas molecules tend to stick to the surface and move
into the bubble. Here they are released from the surface and the process repeats itself.

To test its theory, the researchers used an atomic-force microscope to look for the outward
flow at the apex of nanobubbles. Seddon told physicsworld.com that they measured an
upwards force of about 1.3 nN above their nanobubbles. This is in line with their theory,
which predicts a force of about 1 nN.

Bursting their bubble?

However, not all physicists agree with the team’s conclusions. Phil Attard of the University
of Sydney – who pioneered the study of nanobubbles – told physicsworld.com that he finds
fault with the thermodynamics of the theory. “In my opinion the proposed model by Seddon
and colleagues is not viable,” he says. The team now plans to confirm its findings by taking
snapshots of the process by adding nanoparticles to the liquid, which should get caught up
in the flow.

Gaining a better understanding of the physics of nanobubbles is important, according to


Seddon, because their existence is a fundamental problem of fluid dynamics. Nanobubbles
also have a number of technological applications. They could, for example, play an important
role in microfluidics, where their presence on the walls of tiny channels could make it much
easier for fluid to flow.
The research is described in Phys. Rev. Lett. 107 16101.

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