https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2012-12057-2
Regular Article
Skin formation and bubble growth during drying process of polymer solution
Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 113-8656, Tokyo, Japan
* e-mail: arai1010@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Received:
24
March
2012
Revised:
6
June
2012
Accepted:
12
June
2012
Published online:
11
July
2012
When a polymer solution with volatile solvent is dried, skins are often formed at the surface of the solution. It has been observed that after the skin is formed, bubbles often appear in the solution. We conducted experiments to clarify the relation between the skin formation and the bubble formation. We measured the time dependence of the thickness of the skin layer, the size of the bubbles, and the pressure in the solution. From our experiments, we concluded that i) the gas in the bubble is a mixture of solvent vapor and air dissolved in the solution, ii) the bubble nucleation is assisted by the pressure decrease in the solution covered by the skin layer, and iii) the growth of the bubbles is diffusion limited, mainly limited by the diffusion of air molecules dissolved in the solution.
Key words: Soft Matter: Interfacial Phenomena and Nanostructured Surfaces
© EDP Sciences, SIF, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2012