Effect of disjoining pressure on terminal velocity of a bubble sliding along an inclined wall

The influence of salt concentration on the terminal velocities of gravity-driven single bubbles sliding along an inclined glass wall has been investigated, in an effort to establish whether surface forces acting between the wall and the bubble influence the latter's mobility. A simple sliding bubble apparatus was employed to measure the terminal velocities of air bubbles with radii ranging from 0.3 to 1.5 mm sliding along the interior wall of an inclined Pyrex glass cylinder with inclination angles between 0.6 and 40.1 degrees. Experiments were performed in pure water, 10 mM and 100 mM KCl solutions. We compared our experimental results with a theory by Hodges et al. [1] which considers hydrodynamic forces only, and with a theory developed by two of us [2] which considers surface forces to play a significant role. Our experimental results demonstrate that the terminal velocity of the bubble not only varies with the angle of inclination and the bubble size but also with the salt concentration, particularly at low inclination angles of similar to 1-5 degrees, indicating that double-layer forces between the bubble and the wall influence the sliding behavior. This is the first demonstration that terminal velocities of sliding bubbles are affected by disjoining pressure. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.