Quantifying the potential for bursting bubbles to damage suspended cells

Bubbles that rise to the surface of a cell suspension can damage cells when they pop. This phenomenon is particularly problematic in the biotechnology industry, as production scale bioreactors require continuous injection of oxygen bubbles to maintain cell growth. Previous studies have linked cell damage to high energy dissipation rates (EDR) and have predicted that for small bubbles the EDR could exceed values that would kill many cells used in bioreactors, including Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells. However, it’s unclear how many cells would be damaged by a particular bursting bubble, or more precisely how much volume around the bubble experiences these large energy dissipation rates. Here we quantify these volumes using numerical simulations and demonstrate that even though the volume exceeding a particular EDR increases with bubble size, on a volume-to-volume basis smaller bubbles have a more significant impact. We validate our model with high-speed experiments and present our results in a non-dimensionalized framework, enabling predictions for a variety of liquids and bubble sizes. The results are not restricted to bubbles in bioreactors and may be relevant to a variety of applications ranging from fermentation processes to characterizing the stress levels experienced by microorganisms within the sea surface microlayer.