Homogeneous nucleation and macroscopic growth of gas bubble in organic solutions

This work concerns the spontaneous gas bubble nucleation after rapid decompression in organic solution initially saturated with dissolved gas and the subsequent bubble growth to macroscopic size. The decompression limit for gas bubble formation was obtained from the stability condition of the critical cluster of dissolved gas molecules. This work also clarifies how the critical cluster grows to the critical size bubble, the first object which is separated from liquid molecules by interface. Further growing of this critical size bubble by diffusion process was treated by an integral method for the concentration boundary layer thickness. The calculation values of the amount of decompression for the homogeneous gas bubble formation inorganic solutions and the time required for the birth of macroscopic bubble size are in reasonable agreement with experimental results. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.