Investigation of aerosol particle separation by a rising bubble

The separation of aerosol particles by a moving gas-liquid fluidic interface is central to a wide variety of industrial and natural applications, among which stand out air purification systems and precipitation scavenging. The particle size significantly affects the separation rate. The diffusion of particles in the nanometer range is largely dominated by molecular diffusion. In this regime, predictive models accurately estimate the separation rates. Model inaccuracy increases, however, significantly when the particle size ranges from 0.1 μm to 2.5 μm. In this impaction-dominated regime, the complex interplay between the flow dynamics on both sides of the fluidic interface and the particle inertia makes it difficult to develop suitable models.
In this work, the preliminary work on the the bubble shape and the numerical simulation is presented, besides indication of relevant investigations in the particle separation on rising bubbles.