Farook U, Stride E, Edirisinghe M J, Moaleji R
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London, Torrington Place, London WC1E 7JE, UK.
Med Biol Eng Comput. 2007 Aug;45(8):781-9. doi: 10.1007/s11517-007-0210-1. Epub 2007 Jul 12.
The preparation of microbubble suspensions is an important feature of medical engineering research. Recently, co-axial electrohydrodynamic atomization was used in our laboratory for the first time to prepare microbubble suspensions. In this paper, using a model glycerol-air system, we investigate in detail the characteristics of this microbubbling process. Modes of microbubbling are elucidated with respect to applied voltage and liquid and air flow rates. Thus, a parametric plot is constructed to identify a liquid and gas flow rate regime, which allows continuous microbubbling. This map provides a basis for the selection of a suitable combination of liquid and gas flow rates particularly in relation to yield and bubble size. The mechanism of microbubbling in microfluidic systems is compared with that of microbubbling by co-axial electrohydrodynamic atomization to identify the advantages and the limiting factors of the latter. Stability of microbubbles prepared by this method in terms of variation of diameter as a function of time is compared with previous literature on the dissolution of microbubbles with an air core and suggests the need for further work to stabilize the bubbles.
微泡悬浮液的制备是医学工程研究的一个重要特征。最近，我们实验室首次使用同轴电流体动力雾化来制备微泡悬浮液。在本文中，我们使用甘油 - 空气模型系统，详细研究了这种微泡形成过程的特性。针对施加电压以及液体和空气流速，阐明了微泡形成的模式。因此，构建了一个参数图来确定允许连续微泡形成的液体和气体流速范围。该图为选择合适的液体和气体流速组合提供了依据，特别是在产量和气泡尺寸方面。将微流体系统中的微泡形成机制与同轴电流体动力雾化的微泡形成机制进行比较，以确定后者的优势和限制因素。将通过这种方法制备的微泡在直径随时间变化方面的稳定性与先前关于具有空气核心的微泡溶解的文献进行比较，表明需要进一步开展工作来稳定气泡。
