Evaluation of pressure-driven captive bubble surfactometer.

We modified the captive bubble surfactometer [S. Schürch et al. J. Appl. Physiol. 67: 2389-2396, 1989] to facilitate the measurement of surface adsorption rates and to simplify its construction. We used a range of standards and monolayers of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine to check the calibration of the device against measurements made in a Wilhelmy surface balance and in the captive bubble by using a cathetometer, and we found good agreement. As a further test we measured the surface properties of rabbit lavage lung surfactant (60,000 x average g for 60 min) at 1.0 mg phospholipid/ml. This material adsorbed within 1 s to near-equilibrium surface tension, reached surface tensions of < 5 mN/m on the second compression, and formed very stable films. We conclude that a captive bubble surfactometer can provide accurate information about important surface properties of lung surfactant films.