How are bubbles removed in a chemical reaction?

[Yinxiao Li]

Hi all,
I am really confused at how bubbles are removed in a chemical reaction. Generally it is removed by diffusion...But is there any quantitative equation for that like adhesion energy...? I want to go in this direction to quantitatively analyse the conditions that bubbles are attached or detached from a reaction surface.

 

[Simon Bridge]

Sure - bubbles stay at the surface, lifting part of the surface up ... this is held together by the surface tension but the fluid drains off the top until the bubble bursts, releasing the gas.

The alternative is if the tension is high and the gas is lighter than air - then you have to deal with adhesion via Wan der Waals forces and viscocity etc and it gets messy.

It's really the sort of thing you measure, in practice, rather than model mathematically from first principles.

There is a lot of material on how bubbles form, and how they burst, and how they get released from a surface is quite a big study - look up "surface and colloid science". The bottom line is there are no simple rules or formulas that work for just anything.

From a chemical reaction, the surface only delays the release of the gas at the start of the reaction - at some point an equilibrium builds up so the bubble release is at the same rate as the gas is produced.