High-speed imaging of ultrasound driven cavitation bubbles in blind and through holes.

The interest in application of ultrasonic cavitation for cleaning and surface treatment processes has increased greatly in the last decades. However, not much is known about the behavior of cavitation bubbles inside the microstructural features of the solid substrates. Here we report on an experimental study on dynamics of acoustically driven (38.5 kHz) cavitation bubbles inside the blind and through holes of PMMA plates by using high-speed imaging. Various diameters of blind (150, 200, 250 and 1000 µm) and through holes (200 and 1000 µm) were investigated. Gas bubbles are usually trapped in the holes during substrate immersion in the liquid thus preventing their complete wetting. We demonstrate that trapped gas can be successfully removed from the holes under ultrasound agitation. Besides the primary Bjerknes force and acoustic streaming, the shape oscillations of the trapped gas bubble seem to be a driving force for bubble removal out of the holes. We further discuss the bubble dynamics inside microholes for water and Cu2+ salt solution. It is found that the hole diameter and partly the type of liquid media influences the number, size and dynamics of the cavitation bubbles. The experiments also showed that a large amount of the liquid volume inside the holes can be displaced within one acoustic cycle by the expansion of the cavitation bubbles. This confirmed that ultrasound is a very effective tool to intensify liquid exchange processes, and it might significantly improve micro mixing in small structures. The investigation of the effect of ultrasound power on the bubble density distribution revealed the possibility to control the cavitation bubble distribution inside the microholes. At a high ultrasound power (31.5 W) we observed the highest bubble density at the hole entrances, while reducing the ultrasound power by a factor of ten shifted the bubble locations to the inner end of the blind holes or to the middle of the through holes.

Visualization and optimization of cavitation activity at a solid surface in high frequency ultrasound fields.

Despite the increasing use of high frequency ultrasound in heterogeneous reactions, knowledge about the spatial distribution of cavitation bubbles at the irradiated solid surface is still lacking. This gap hinders controllable surface sonoreactions. Here we present an optimization study of the cavitation bubble distribution at a solid sample using sonoluminescence and sonochemiluminescence imaging. The experiments were performed at three ultrasound frequencies, namely 580, 860 and 1142kHz. We found that position and orientation of the sample to the transducer, as well as its material properties influence the distribution of active cavitation bubbles at the sample surface in the reactor. The reason is a significant modification of the acoustic field due to reflections and absorption of the ultrasonic wave by the solid. This is retraced by numerical simulations employing the Finite Element Method, yielding reasonable agreement of luminescent zones and high acoustic pressure amplitudes in 2D simulations. A homogeneous coverage of the test sample surface with cavitation is finally reached at nearly vertical inclination with respect to the incident wave.

Micropatterning for the control of surface cavitation: visualization through high-speed imaging.

For the first time, we apply a high-speed imaging technique to record the activity of acoustically driven cavitation bubbles (86 kHz) on micropatterned surfaces with hydrophobic and hydrophilic stripes. The width of the hydrophobic stripes lies between 3.5 and 115 µm. This work provides the first direct visualization of the preferential location of bubbles on the hydrophobic areas of the patterns. The results confirm our previous prediction that surface cavitation strongly depends on the surface energy of the irradiated substrate. The observations show a remarkable effect of the stripe width on the size, movement, growth, splitting, and multiplying of the bubbles. The high-speed imaging also reveals that there is a minimal width of the hydrophobic stripes that allows bubble attraction and formation. Our observations are supported by a theoretical approach based on the forces acting on the bubbles.