During the first part of today’s seminar, PhD student Haihan Li presented some of the most recent results of his work on bubble plumes in electrolysis.
In electrolysis cells, hydrogen and oxygen bubbles are nucleated and grow on the surface of the electrodes, until they detach from the surface and rise through the surrounding fluid, forming a bubble plume. Haihan has been running laboratory experiments to investigate the bubbles and plume behaviour.
Using a nickel wire of a diameter of order 0.1 mm, Haihan has been able to observe electrolysis bubbles as small as 10 microns or less in size. At small distances from the wire, these bubbles form a laminar buoyant plume, which then transitions into a turbulent plume as the distance from the wire is increased. Haihan has been using detailed measurements of the bubble rise speed to characterise the large-scale behaviour of the flow.
Haihan’s work is ongoing, and we look forward to reading about his new findings very soon!