Experimental Investigation On Bubble Formation In Microchannel T-junctions

Micro-bubbles are useful in a wide range of applications, particularly when the bubble size is fine and uniform. However, studies on effective methods of fabricating such fine and uniform bubbles are limited.The present work proposes to use T-junction of microchannel to generate these bubbles. By using water solution as liquid phase, argon as gas phase, and an ultra-high-speed CCD camera system, we carry on the research on micro-bubble generation in order to produce small bubbles with a low coefficient of variation at a fixed generation frequency .we study the effects of micro-channel structure, fluid interfacial tension and viscosity on bubble sizes, their coefficient of variation, stability of bubble generation and flow pattern, by changing the width ratio between continuous-phase and dispersing-phase channels, the concentration of OT aerosol and glycerin in water solution.We record flow pattern, bubble shape and generation frequency, study flow pattern variation as inlet pressures of gas and liquid change, and present the result in the form of flow patterns. We also obtain empirical relations for bubble sizes and their generation frequency and examine features different flow patterns. The optimal inlet pressure range is also obtained. The optimal width ratio between continuous-phase and dispersing-phase channels, and optimal concentration of OT aerosol and glycerin has experimentally been determined as well.