Ultrasonic waveform upshot on mass variation within single cavitation bubble: Investigation of physical and chemical transformations

The mechanical disturbance created by an ultrasonic wave travelling through a liquid medium induces the formation of cavitation that oscillates due to rarefaction and compression of the wave. The duration and the magnitude of the pressure applied by the ultrasonic wave at each instant would generate a specific impact on the variation of the bubble radius, the temperature, the pressure and the mass inside it. In this paper, a numerical study is conducted to simulate four waveforms (sinusoidal, square, triangular and sawtooth) travelling an aqueous media saturated with oxygen with an amplitude of 1.5 and 2 atm and a frequency of 200, 300 and 500 kHz. The purpose is to highlight the mass evolution within acoustic cavitation bubble during one cycle due to physical transformations and sonochemical effect. The obtained results demonstrated that square signal enhances temperature and pressure growth inside the bubble, as well as mass transfer by evaporation and condensation. This leads to an improvement of produced quantities of free radicals but also to a selectivity of O as a major product in the detriment of HO2 and OH. These trends are less and less observed when passing to sinusoidal, triangular and square signal.