Antibubbles: Factors that affect their stability

While typical soap bubbles in fluid medium consist of a thin liquid film enclosing a gas, antibubbles form in liquid and consist of thin air film enclosing a pocket of liquid. They can be made when a surfactant solution is gently ejected into an identical solution. Various factors that affect the stability of an antibubble were tested. Although the experiment supports an inverse relationship between air film thickness (mean ≈ 0.6 ± 0.3 μm) and antibubble radius, antibubble stability was found to be size independent (r2 = 0.13, 0.05). Stability, however, was affected by presence of micellar structures due to aging surfactant solution (decrease in duration by 3 min in 3 day old solution), surface contamination of solution by substances such as lycopodium powder (decrease in rate of antibubble formation by about 60%), and external pressure (decrease in duration by 6 min/20 hPa increase of hydrostatic pressure). Factors such as presence of micellar complexes, and external pressure were attributed to most of the premature death of antibubbles whereas factors such as surface contamination were attributed to most of the failures at antibubble formation.