Solutocapillary bubble centering in a confined ethanol plume in water

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that solutocapillary forces can reliably center bubbles within a buoyant ethanol plume in water, with potential applications in microfluidics and phase separation.

Contribution

It introduces a reduced-order model showing robust bubble centering driven by solutocapillary forces in a confined ethanol-water system.

Findings

Bubbles of various sizes reliably align along the plume centerline.

Steep radial concentration gradients facilitate bubble centering.

Larger bubbles exhibit complex dynamics, including upstream migration.

Abstract

This study investigates the radial centering of gas bubbles within a buoyant plume of ethanol injected into a co-flowing water sheath flow in a vertical capillary. Bubbles nucleate in the ethanol stream due to CO$_2$ supersaturation and rapidly migrate toward the plume axis via solutocapillary (Marangoni) forces driven by interfacial tension gradients in the ethanol-water mixture. Experiments reveal that bubbles of varying sizes reliably align along the plume centerline, facilitated by steep radial concentration gradients near the plume boundary. A reduced-order model supports robust centering across a wide range of bubble radii. For larger bubbles, axial Marangoni effects modulate ascent velocities and can even induce upstream migration under transient conditions, highlighting the complex feedback between bubble dynamics and plume distortion. The results demonstrate that solutocapillary migration provides a reliable mechanism for contact-free bubble focusing, with implications for bubble manipulation in microfluidics, reactors, and phase-separation processes.