Gas Bubble Growth Dynamics in a Supersaturated Solution: Henry's and Sievert's Solubility Laws

Abstract: Theoretical description of diffusion growth of a gas bubble after its nucleation in supersaturated liquid solution is presented. We study the influence of Laplace pressure on the bubble growth. We consider two different solubility laws: Henry's law, which is fulfilled for the systems where no gas molecules dissociation takes place and Sievert's law, which is fulfilled for the systems where gas molecules completely dissociate in the solvent into two parts. We show that the difference between Henry's and Sievert's laws for chemical equilibrium conditions causes the difference in bubble growth dynamics. Assuming that diffusion flux of dissolved gas molecules to the bubble is steady we obtain differential equations on bubble radius for both solubility laws. For the case of homogeneous nucleation of a bubble, which takes place at a significant pressure drop bubble dynamics equations for Henry's and Sievert's laws are solved analytically. For both solubility laws three characteristic stages of bubble growth are marked out. Intervals of bubble size change and time intervals of these stages are found. We also obtain conditions of diffusion flux steadiness corresponding to consecutive stages. The fulfillment of these conditions is discussed for the case of nucleation of water vapor bubbles in magmatic melts. For Sievert's law the analytical treatment of the problem of bubble dissolution in a pure solvent is also presented.