Investigation of Surfactant-Laden Bubble Migration Dynamics in Self-Rewetting Fluids using Lattice Boltzmann Method

TL;DR

This study uses a lattice Boltzmann method to explore how surfactants influence bubble migration in self-rewetting fluids, revealing unique equilibrium behaviors driven by temperature and surfactant effects.

Contribution

It introduces a novel simulation approach to analyze surfactant effects on bubble dynamics in self-rewetting fluids, highlighting equilibrium positions and controllable migration behaviors.

Findings

Bubbles in SRFs reach an equilibrium position, unlike in normal fluids.

Surfactants shift the bubble's equilibrium location upstream.

Gibbs elasticity influences the extent of surfactant impact on bubble position.

Abstract

Self-rewetting fluids (SRFs) (e.g., aqueous solutions of long-chain alcohols) show anomalous nonlinear (quadratic) variations of surface tension with temperature involving a positive gradient, leading to different thermocapillary convection compared to normal fluids (NFs). Moreover, surface-active materials or surfactants can significantly alter interfacial dynamics by their adsorption on fluid interfaces. The coupled effects of temperature- and surfactant-induced Marangoni stresses on migration bubbles in SRFs remain unexplored. We use a robust lattice Boltzmann (LB) method based on central moments to simulate the two-fluid motions, capture interfaces, and compute the transport of energy and surfactant concentration fields, and systematically study the surfactant-laden bubble dynamics in SRFs. When compared to motion of bubbles in normal fluids, in which they continuously migrate without a stationary behavior, our results show that they exhibit dramatically different characteristics in SRFs. Not only is the bubble motion directed towards the minimum temperature location in SRFs, but, more importantly, the bubble attains an equilibrium position. In the absence of surfactants, such an equilibrium position arises at the minimum reference temperature occurring at the center of the domain. The addition of surfactants moves the equilibrium location further upstream, which is controlled by the magnitude of the Gibbs elasticity parameter that determines the magnitude of the surface tension variation with surfactants. The quadratic sensitivity coefficient of surface tension on temperature associated with the SRF modulates this behavior. The lower this quantity, the greater is the role of surfactants modifying the equilibrium position of the bubble in SRF. These findings provide new means to potentially manipulate the bubble dynamics, and especially to tune its equilibrium states.