Biosurfactants Change the Thinning of Contaminated Bubbles at Bacteria-Laden Water Interfaces
Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: Bubbles reside at the water surface before bursting, emitting droplets that can contain chemicals and pathogens linked to disease and contamination. We discover that bacterial secretions enhance the lifetime of bubbles. We also reveal and elucidate two distinct regimes of thinning for such contaminated bubbles. Initially, marginal regeneration governs their thinning rate, similarly to clean water bubbles. However, due to their enhanced lifetime, it is eventually evaporation that governs their thinning, thus also dramatically decreasing their thickness at burst. We derive and experimentally validate the expression for the critical timescale at which the transition between the two regimes occurs. The shift in thinning law makes the droplets produced by contaminated bubbles smaller, faster, and more numerous than those produced by clean bubbles. Our findings suggest that microorganisms can manipulate the aging physics of surface bubbles to enhance their own water-to-air dispersal.
Source: Physical Review Letters
Authors: S. Poulain, L. Bourouiba
Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Language: English
Subfield: Computational Mechanics
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2901473778