Relative wettability measurement of porous diffuser and its impact on the generated bubble size

Controlling the bubble size is a major concern in enhancing transport performance in gas-liquid systems. The role of wettability of diffuser surface on bubble size is the subject of the current work. The study inspects the contact angle of a set of liquids on HP ceramic diffusers using the Washburn method. The results demonstrate that organic liquids like toluene, methanol-water (1:1 v/v), ethanol-water (1:1 v/v) and decane have small contact angles of 12.9◦, 37.5◦, 24.4◦ and 22.5◦ respectively. Water has a lower wettability than the organic compounds where the contact angle was about 67.4◦. The effect of wettability of the bubble size is investigated by measuring the size of air bubble produced using the same diffuser material. The results of bubble size measurement demonstrates that with liquids of small contact angle, i.e. good wetting properties, small bubble sizes are produced in comparison with liquids with a higher contact angle. The study demonstrates the viability of Washburn method in characterization of wettability of porous diffuser, which was verified by measuring the bubble size produced. A high reduction in bubble size can be obtained by a carefully chosen diffuser material that provides better wettability.