Nano-bubbles were shown to have numerous applications. Their modelling however, is largely limited to coarse grain methods. This work reports on the dynamics of CO2 and air nano-bubbles on amorphous silica surfaces, immersed in water, using all-atom simulation. Most studies explore the formation and dynamics of nano-bubbles in gas supersaturated liquids. This study investigates the formation of nano-bubbles from high density molecular gase regions placed in solution. This allows us to examine the temporal expansion and stability of nano-bubbles. The expansion is accompanied by a decrease in density that is shown to follow an exponential decay. The stable value of the gas density in the nano-bubbles was attributed to a continuous diffusion of molecular gases. Thus accounting for the stability of nano-bubbles. During the equilibrium the contact angle between the nano-bubbles and silica surfaces are between about 15 and 25 degrees. The results are in agreement with theoretical and experimental studies that investigate nanobubbles.
By: A. Bojovschi, Xi Liang, Sue A. Chen
Published in: RC25497 in 2014
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