Bubble dissolution

Heat and mass transfer processes in microchannels are very important for many microfluidics applications, the one motivating our work being the dissolution of a train of bubbles inside a microchannel.

We have focused on the calculation of Sherwood number (dimensionless mass transfer coeficient) as a function of the geometrical properties and the Pèclet number (advection to diffusion ratio).

In the figures, the streamlines of the flow and the dissolution mode are depicted, as well as the Sherwood number as a function of the Pèclet number.

We can observe the transition between pure diffusive regime in the longitudinal direction over pure convective to pure diffusive regime in the radial direction.

These results are very interesting to understand the more complex dissolution process. In you are interested, both processes are thoroughly studied in our work.