Bubble growth rates in nucleate boiling of aqueous binary systems at subatmospheric pressures

The growth rate of vapour bubbles has been investigated experimentally in the following binary systems with a more volatile organic component: water-ethanol (up to 31wt% ethanol, at pressures between 4.08 and 6.65 kPa, the Jakob number varying from 1989 to 1075), water-1-butanol (up to 2.4 wt% l-butanol, at pressures between 3.60 and 4.08 kPa, the Jakob number varying from 2760 to 1989), and water-2-butanone (up to 15wt% 2-butanone, at pressures between 7.31 and 9.07 kPa, the Jakob number varying from 1519 to 683). Experimental bubble growth is in quantitative agreement with the van Stralen et al. theory [1], which combines the initially dominating Rayleigh solution with a (heat and mass) diffusion-type solution for the contributions to advanced bubble growth due to both the relaxation microlayer (around the bubble dome) and the evaporation microlayer (beneath the bubble). The slowing-down effect of mass diffusion on advanced bubble growth in mixtures occurs only in the system water-2-butanone. The contribution of the evaporation microlayer is negligible (at any pressure) for mixtures with a low concentration of the more volatile component, in which mass diffusion limits advanced growth considerably.