Chem. Eng. Comm.

, 192: 550–556, 2005

Copyright # Taylor & Francis Inc.
ISSN: 0098-6445 print=1563-5201 online
DOI: 10.1080/00986440590495034

Breakup of Bubbles Rising in Liquids of Low

and Moderate Viscosity

K. WICHTERLE
J. WICHTERLOVÁ
L. KULHÁNKOVÁ
VSB-Technical University of Ostrava,
Ostrava Poruba,
Czech Republic

The breakup rate of bubbles was studied by observing them rising in water and in
glycerol solutions with l ¼ 1–32 mPas. A levitating technique was applied with
bubbles seized in the downstream liquid flow of a diverging channel. Bubbles with
volumes VB ¼ 0.2–0.8 cm3 are generally spheroid but their shape pulsates. As they
wobble they have a tendency to split. The exponential decay of the number of
unbroken bubbles was found, which has been characterized quantitatively by a
half-life, t1=2. The rate of breakup increased significantly with the original size of
the bubble. By regression of experimental data, the proportionality t1=2
VB–4 has
been determined. There is a significant effect of surface tension, while the effect
of viscosity on the process appeared to be negligible in the bubble Reynolds number
range of 60–3000 that was investigated.

Keywords: Aeration; Bubble; Dispersion; Multiphase flow; Particle; Stability

Introduction
Systems with bubbles in liquid are very common both in the natural environment
and in process technologies. Bubbles can be used to induce liquid flow in airlift sys-
tems, to agitate liquids, particularly the suspension of solids, and to contact liquid
with gases, whether in distillation, absorption, or degassing to complex chemical
reactions. The motion of bubbles plays an important role also in heat transfer pro-
cesses, particularly during liquid boiling. Investigation of behavior of a single bubble
is the first step to the understanding of momentum, heat, and mass transfer in gas-
liquid processes. Current knowledge of the subject is presented in the monograph by
Clift, Grace, and Weber (1978).
Essentially, bubble shape is determined by the ratio of gravity forces deforming
the bubble and the surface forces keeping its shape in a spherical form. It is expressed
for arbitrary liquid systems by the Eötvös number:
d 2 qg
Eo  B ð1Þ
r
Received 8 August 2001; in final form 3 October 2003.
Address correspondence to K. Wichterle, VSB-Technical University of Ostrava, 70833
Ostrava Poruba, Czech Republic. E-mail: kamil.wichterle@vsb.cz

550
 Breakup of Bubbles Rising in Liquids of Low and Moderate Viscosity 551

with equivalent diameter

rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
3 6VB
dB  ð2Þ
p
The influence of viscosity on the shape of a bubble is characterized by the Morton
number:
l4 g
M ð3Þ
r3 q

For low viscosity liquids with M << 103, there is no apparent viscosity effect
and a single value Eo controls the bubble shape. Small bubbles having Eo << 1 are
essentially spherical.
Numerous experimental and theoretical studies, including several monographs
dealing with bubbles, appeared during past two decades (van Wijngaarden, 1982;
Grace and Weber, 1982; Fan and Tsutschiya, 1990; Chabra and De Kee, 1992;
Chabra, 1993; Sadhal et al., 1997; Zapryanov and Tabakova, 1999). Unfortunately,
these studies mostly pay attention to spherical bubbles in viscous liquids and to small
perturbations of this case.
However, larger bubbles rising at higher Reynolds numbers occur more
frequently, both in nature as well as in industrial processes. Spheroid bubbles are
typical for the range of 1 < Eo < 40. They are kept stable by hydrodynamic forces
rather than by the surface tension. With increasing Eo, they slowly lose their fore-
and-aft symmetry and, at Eo > 40, they acquire a hemispherical or a spherical
cap shape. Both the shape the motion of larger bubbles are somewhat unstable;
the bubbles wobble during their rise. Such behavior is too complex to be studied
theoretically. From an experimental point of view, spheroid bubbles occur within
the volume range of 0.01 cm3 < VB < 2 cm3 in water, and their rising velocity is
within the range of 0.15–0.30 m=s. It appears that experimental investigation of such
bubbles is usually limited to the recording of their shape and velocity at a single
instant. With a moving camera or a set of stationary cameras focused to selected
points of the column (Hosokawa et al., 1999) a particular bubble can be observed
for a finite period. For example, in the measuring section of large columns (Krishna
et al., 1999) (having the inside diameter up to 0.6 m and the height of 4 m) bubbles
spent only 10–20 s. This is insufficient to investigate such processes as breakup and
coalescence. One possible solution is to observe bubbles in the downstream flow of
liquid in transparent channel (Coppus et al., 1977).
From time to time, large bubbles release smaller, daughter bubbles. A class of
medium-size spheroid bubbles resulting from this breakup is extremely important
in industrial gas-liquid processes (Shah and Deckwer, 1983; Kastanek et al., 1993).
We have studied the probability of a breakup of large bubbles and the results are
presented in this article.

Experimental
Recently, we applied a levitating technique that is suitable for the long-term qualitative
observation of the shape and oscillation of wobbling, breakup, and coalescence of
bubbles under well-controlled conditions (Wichterle et al., 1999, 2000).
552 K. Wichterle et al.

The principal part of our equipment is an entrance region of a diverging conical

channel. When a bubble is placed in the downward-oriented diverging channel, it
migrates to the position where its rising velocity is just compensated for by the local
liquid velocity. Thus, the liquid flow rate need not be extremely carefully controlled
like in the parallel channel (Coppus et al., 1977). The Reynolds number for our pipe
flow is between 300 and 10,000. Turbulence in the system has not been investigated
yet. It is probable that the throttled centrifugal pump equipped with an air chamber
and connected to the system by flexible hoses does not produce any significant pulsa-
tions. Thus, the assumption of entrance region flow is plausible for the flow from a
considerably larger calming section. According to this, a narrow boundary layer
occurs close to the walls of the conical channel, and essentially plug flow charac-
terizes the remaining flow profile. Bubbles are maintained in the central region of
the channel by the centrifugal force induced by slowly rotating baffles upstream.
The experimental setup is shown schematically in Figure 1.
Tap water and glycerol solutions (viscosity 1–32 mPas) were used. Liquids were
saturated by air at 25–30C. Liquid flow rate was adjusted by the valve and measured
by the flow meter. Bubbles were released by a syringe system. The motion of bubbles
was recorded by video and the records were analyzed by a PC. Smaller bubbles hav-
ing volume up to 0.3 cm3 break only rarely and one single bubble can be observed for
hours. Life periods of larger bubbles prior to their breakup are finite. This has been
the object of this study.

Results
Single bubbles of a given volume were released to the channel. Experimental runs
when the bubble broke just during its formation were ignored. The number of
released bubbles in time t ¼ 0 is N0 and number N of bubbles surviving given time
t is a function time N(t). The experimental data obtained indicate an exponential
decrease of the lifetime of bubbles as can be seen from the plot of log(N(t)=N0) versus
t. From the interpretation of the experimental data as shown in Figure 2 it can be
clearly seen that, in water, the number of bubbles of any initial volume decreases
exponentially with time. The same conclusion is found also for the aqueous solutions
of glycerin of varying viscosity. Therefore, the process can be characterized by
a single value, i.e., by the half-life t1=2 of a bubble:
 
t
N ¼ N0 exp  ln 2 ð4Þ
t1=2
The half-life of bubbles depends on the initial bubble size and on the physical proper-
ties of the liquid (i.e., the density, the viscosity, and the surface tension of the liquid.).
Postulating that the dimensionless half-life can be expressed by a generalized for-
mula H1=2 ¼ fðEo MÞ, where dimensionless half-life is defined by

t1=2 q1=4 g3=4

H1=2  ð5Þ
r1=4
The regression of all experimental data for bubbles in water and two aqueous
solutions of glycerin leads to

H1=2 ¼ 1:66  1010 Eo6:05 M 0:04 ðR2 ¼ 0:93Þ ð6Þ

 Breakup of Bubbles Rising in Liquids of Low and Moderate Viscosity 553

Figure 1. Experimental setup: liquid loop (Kavalier Glass 25 mm, PVC hoses 3=400 , heat
exchanger (copper)); centrifugal pump Wilo-Jet 401 (stainless steel, plastics), 0–50 dm3=min;
calming section (Kavalier Glass 100=200 mm, with a system of slowly rotating baffles (0–65
rpm); vertical rectangular transparent vessel 100  100  400 mm with a diverging conical
channel, the cone with entry diameter 47.5 mm and wall slope 2 was applied in this set of
experiments; induction flowmeter Endress-Hauser; syringe system (Eppendorff) for injection
of bubbles, usual dosage 10–1000 mm3; camera (Panasonic DX100), VCR and TV (Philips),
PC (Pentium), AD-DA transducer, video card (National Instruments).

Clearly, the effect of the viscosity expressed here by the Morton number within the
investigated range of M ¼ 1011  107 can be neglected and the results plotted in
Figure 3 may be satisfactorily interpreted by a simplified power function
 6
Eo
H1=2 ¼ 5900 ðR2 ¼ 0:88Þ ð7Þ
10
The half-life (in seconds) for air bubbles in water is t1=2 ¼ 0.7 VB 4 (when
volume is measured in cubic centimeters). Larger air bubbles in water during their
initial breakup will release usually just one small daughter bubble, its volume being
typically around 0.2 cm3. Bubbles smaller than 0.4 cm3, when split, will form two
554 K. Wichterle et al.

Figure 2. Decrease of the number of non-broken bubbles of various original volume VB as

a function of time in water.

similar daughter bubbles; however, bubbles of this size are comparatively stable.
Bubbles of the same size in glycerol solutions are more prone to a breakage, e.g.,
for 76% glycerol, t1=2 ¼ 0.3 VB4. This value results mainly from the lower surface
tension, while the effect of viscosity seems to be negligible.

Conclusions
An experimental technique based on levitating bubbles makes it possible to investi-
gate rising bubbles at controlled conditions for large periods of time.

Figure 3. Bubble half-life as a function of the volume of air bubbles that rise in water and in
aqueous solutions of glycerine; experimental data and power-law approximation (7).
 Breakup of Bubbles Rising in Liquids of Low and Moderate Viscosity 555

The rate of bubble breakup evaluated from the experimental data has been
expressed by an exponential function of time. Half-life of bubbles depends strongly
on bubble size. It also depends on surface tension. On the other hand, the effect of
viscosity is minor. A dimensionless correlation has been suggested for the generaliza-
tion of the results.

Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge financial support by the grants No.106=98=0050 and
104=04=0827 from the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic.

Nomenclature
dB equivalent diameter, Equation (2)
Eo Eötvös number, Equation (1)
g gravity acceleration
M Morton number, Equation (3)
N number of unbroken bubbles
N0 initial number of bubbles
R2 correlation coefficient
t time
t1=2 half-life of a bubble
VB bubble volume
v axial velocity
x axial distance from the channel inlet
h1=2 dimensionless half-life, Equation (5)
l dynamic viscosity
q density
r surface tension

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