Creating Micro-Bubbles for Aquaculture Research: Techniques and Considerations

[itaischles]

Hi all,
I'm kind of new here and this is my first post :)
I'm a physics UG student now participating in a physics project in my department. In the project I have to make very small air bubbles with radius of a few microns to about 50-100 microns (the exact size doesn't really matter). I have to capture them on the bottom of a dish (like a petri-dish) and the medium that they are in is mainly water (later I will add salts to it). Does anybody have an idea about the procedure to make these kind of bubbles?
Thanks for your help!

 

[Mordred]

fit an air nozzle with a fine mesh micron screen. you can get screens with the size of holes you want readliy enough. There is also micron jet nozzles available.

 

[itaischles]

Thanks, I'll try that.

 

[Mordred]

np its probably easier than trying to drill micron size holes lol though that would certainly work. you might try Veejet they manufacture some fine spray nozzles though I'm not sure they get down to the micron scale. the smaller jet applications are often used in buble jet printers but they usually stop at 200 microns to prevent drift. Drift isn't a concern for you though. Mesh filter screens are avalable though

 

[itaischles]

well, that was my first naive thought: drilling a micro-sized hole. but of course this is very hard to achieve and besides the time it takes to make, it is also difficult to manipulate (just think about how you would get air flowing through such a small hole - a syringe?)

 

[Mordred]

http://www.miami-aquaculture.com/screen.htm

something like this mesh could work for you as the mesh itself would create individual bubbles. A syringe could also work Air will go through some pretty tiny holes given enough pressure a micron is large compared to the diameter of an O2 molecule a screen would need less pressure.