Decompression sickness bubbles: Are gas micronuclei formed on a flat hydrophobic surface?

摘要: It is a long-standing hypothesis that the bubbles which evolve as result of decompression have their origin in stable gas micronuclei lodged hydrophobic crevices, micelles surface-active molecules, or tribonucleation. Recent findings supported by atomic force microscopy indicated tiny, flat nanobubbles form spontaneously on smooth, surfaces submerged water. We propose these may be responsible for to cause sickness. To support our hypothesis, we used hydrophilic and monolayer-covered smooth silicon wafers. The experiment was conducted three main stages. Double distilled water degassed at low pressure 5.60 kPa; wafers were placed bowl left overnight normobaric pressure. then hyperbaric chamber 15 h 1013 kPa (=90 m sea water). After decompression, observed photographed. results showed only evolved following decompression. There are numerous within living body (e.g., large blood vessels), thus sites where serve bubble evolution formed.