Test of the Epstein-Plesset model for gas microparticle dissolution in aqueous media: effect of surface tension and gas undersaturation in solution.

The gas from a free air bubble will readily dissolve in water, driven by two main factors: the concentration (undersaturation) of dissolved gas in the aqueous solution and the surface tension of the gas bubble-water interface via a Laplace overpressure in the bubble that this creates. This paper experimentally and theoretically investigates each of these effects individually. To study the effects of surface tension, single- and double-chain surfactants were utilized to control and define interfacial conditions of the microbubble in saturated solution. To study the effect of undersaturation, solid distearoylphosphocholine lipid was utilized to coat the gas microparticle with, essentially, a wax monolayer and to achieve zero tension in the surface. The experimental work was performed using a micromanipulation technique that allows one to create and micromanipulate single air microparticles (5-50 microm radius range) in infinite dilution and to accurately record the size of the particle as it loses volume due to the dissolution process. The micropipet technique has shown to be an improvement over other previous attempts to measure dissolution time with a 3.2% average experimental error in gas microparticle dissolution time. An ability to study a gas microparticle in infinite dilution in an isotropic diffusion field is in line with the theoretical assumptions and conditions of the Epstein-Plesset model. The Epstein-Plesset model on average underpredicted the experimentally determined dissolution time by 8.6%, where the effect of surface tension was considered with a range of surface tensions from 72 down to 25 mN/m. The Epstein-Plesset model on average overpredicted the dissolution time by 8.2%, where the effect of undersaturation was considered for a microparticle with zero tension in the surface (zero Laplace pressure) and a range of gas saturations from 70% to 100%. Compared to previous attempts in the literature, this paper more appropriately and accurately tests the Epstein-Plesset model for the dissolution of a single microbubble and an air-filled microparticle in aqueous solution.