A liquid bubble is expected to burst in a very short time when you blow it. These are fragile beings with many interesting physics effects packed together in a tiny glowing shell. However, a team of physicists created a bubble that managed to stay intact for 465 days.
The findings, published in the journal Physical Review Fluids, do not focus on soap bubbles that, at best, survive for about a minute. Ordinary bubbles we are used to seeing lose fluid through evaporation or gravity drainage. This instability has even been tested in space. In addition, the gas in the bubble passes through the thin membrane consisting of soap and water and spreads back to the environment. All these effects come together and cause an explosion.
Scientists are investigating ways to make bubbles more stable. One method is to mix water and small plastic beads and blow air into them to create bubbles and create an entity called a gas ball. The team wondered how long the bubbles could actually last, and what they found is the limit is pretty high.
The team created bubbles with a mixture of water and nylon particles, and they added glycerol (also known as glycerin), an ingredient commonly found in cosmetics, to create other bubbles. While the water and nylon bubbles remained intact for several minutes, some burst in about an hour.
Bubbles with glycerol added to their mixture lasted much longer. The team found that the bubbles “survived” for more than 100 days, with the toughest surviving 465 days. The key factor here is a mixture of glycerol and nanobeads that neutralize the physical processes that would normally cause the balloon to burst.
In the paper, the researchers say: “We show that coating a water bubble shell with microparticles inhibits gravity-induced drainage, and also that the addition of glycerol leads to a stable state in which the evaporation of water is balanced by the hygroscopicity of the glycerol that absorbs the water molecules present in the ambient air. This has been over a year without significant evolution in their radii. results in bubbles that can retain their integrity in a standard atmosphere for a very long time.”
The team also managed to make different shapes. Long-lasting bubbles, applications for creating more stable foams rather than fun, as well as research on ways to trap toxic gases. Much remains unclear about the properties of these objects, so research beyond the applications will be quite interesting.
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