The quasi-static growth of CO2 bubbles

We study experimentally the growth of an isolated gas bubble in a slightly supersaturated water–CO2 solution at 6 atm pressure. In contrast to what was found in previous experiments at higher supersaturation, the time evolution of the bubble radius differs noticeably from existing theoretical solutions. We trace the differences back to several combined effects of the concentration boundary layer around the bubble, which we disentangle in this work. In the early phase, the interaction with the surface on which the bubble grows slows down the process. In contrast, in the final phase, before bubble detachment, the growth rate is enhanced by the onset of density-driven convection. We also show that the bubble growth is affected by prior growth and detachment events, though they are up to 15 min apart.