Abstract
Antifoams are widely used to control or to avoid foam production. In order to work, antifoam particles need to break foam films efficiently, which many antifoams do very well. However, once they have broken a film, to continue to be effective they need to be transported to the next film. We show, for the first time, that buoyancy has an important part in the transport of the antifoam particles. In microgravity, where buoyancy and gravitational drainage are strongly slowed down, diffusion leads to poor antifoam performance. The foam is stable for the duration of the experiment, whereas on Earth the foam starts to disappear immediately. Indeed, microgravity renders highly efficient antifoam practically useless.
Highlights
Gas bubbles are often dispersed in water in the presence of stabilizing agents to form foams for applications including food, cosmetics, detergency, or oil recovery.[1]
AFs are divided into two families: fast and slow AFs depending on how quickly they destroy foams
It is generally accepted that fast AFs act in films, whereas slow AFs flow out with capillary drainage and act after the Plateau borders (PBs) start draining
Summary
Gas bubbles are often dispersed in water in the presence of stabilizing agents to form foams (see Figure 1) for applications including food, cosmetics, detergency, or oil recovery.[1]. Antifoam (AF) agents are necessary.[2,3,4] These agents are used to control the amount of films in solid foams during the solidification of the precursor liquid foams.
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