Effect of substance properties on the appearance and characteristics of repeated surface tension auto-oscillation driven by Marangoni force

Abstract

The effect of substance properties (solution viscosity and density, surfactant bulk and surface diffusion coefficient, activity, and solubility) on the appearance and characteristics of surface tension auto-oscillation that occurs by dissolution of a surfactant drop under the water-air interface is considered in the framework of a simple mathematical model, taking into account the convection driven by the Marangoni effect and convective diffusion together with adsorption/desorption processes at the air-water interface. Numerical simulations show that apart from the Marangoni and Schmidt number, the system behavior is governed also by the exchange number, which determines the surfactant exchange with the interface. The criterion for the instability onset in a system with both normal and tangential (with respect to the interface) concentration gradient, the correlation between the global and local Marangoni numbers, as well as a comparison with experiment are discussed.