Quasistatic growth of bubbles in a gelatin gel under dissolved-gas supersaturation

Abstract

We theoretically and experimentally study the quasistatic growth of bubbles in a gelatin gel under dissolved-gas supersaturation in order to examine the role of the gel elasticity in the mass-diffusion-driven process. First, we model the diffusion-driven bubble growth with the classical Epstein-Plesset approach for quasistatic bubble growth, accounting for elasticity of the medium surrounding the bubbles. Next, we devise an experimental technique to visualize the bubble growth in an air-supersaturated gel of different gelatin concentrations and to obtain the growth rate of the bubble. We show, from comparisons between the theory and experiments, that the bubble growth is hindered by the gel elasticity.