%0 Journal Article
%T Thermodynamic Stability of Nanobubbles
%A Phil Attard
%J Physics
%D 2015
%I arXiv
%X The observed stability of nanobubbles contradicts the well-known result in classical nucleation theory, that the critical radius is both microscopic and thermodynamically unstable. Here nanoscopic stability is shown to be the combined result of two non-classical mechanisms. It is shown that the surface tension decreases with increasing supersaturation, and that this gives a nanoscopic critical radius. Whilst neither a free spherical bubble nor a hemispherical bubble mobile on an hydrophobic surface are stable, it is shown that an immobilized hemispherical bubble with a pinned contact rim is stable and that the total entropy is a maximum at the critical radius.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.04365v1