- Title
- A mechanism for the influence of humidity on foam stability
- Creator
- Li, Xueliang; Evans, Geoffrey M.; Stevenson, Paul
- Relation
- CHEMECA 2011: Engineering a Better World. CHEMECA 2011: Engineering a Better World (Sydney 18-21 September, 2011)
- Relation
- http://www.conference.net.au/chemeca2011
- Publisher
- Engineers Australia
- Resource Type
- conference paper
- Date
- 2011
- Description
- The stability of pneumatic foam plays a crucial role in many industrial processes such as foam fractionation and froth flotation. It has been previously observed that the humidity gradient in the freeboard of a foam fractionation column is a controlling factor of the dynamic foam stability. However, the underlying physics as to how the humidity gradient affects the foam stability has not previously been understood. In the present study, experiments were carried out to study the effect of environmental humidity on the stability of static foams, coupled with direct experimental observations of the bursting process of isolated bubbles by high speed video recording. Preliminary results showed that the foam collapses not only because the foam films become more susceptible to rupture because they lose liquid inventory due to evaporation, but the non-uniform evaporation actually causes a surface-tension gradient on the bubble surface, which pulls liquid from the free surface via the Marangoni effect.
- Subject
- foam stability; humidity gradient; foams
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1036635
- Identifier
- uon:13333
- Identifier
- ISBN:9780858259225
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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