Cavitation-Induced Organic Matter Modifications in Marine Surface Waters.

University Of Connecticut, Storrs CT

Investigators

Abstract

ABSTRACT This exploratory award is directed to consideration of there being sufficient energy released during the accelerative bubble compression and rarefaction of natural oceanic bubble fields to allow the conversion of the acoustic kinetic energy of liquid motion into sufficiently highly localized heat and pressures excessive enough to provide a unique means of driving chemical reactions. Under conditions of direct application of high enough levels of ultrasonic energy into liquids, including water, salt solutions and seawater, both sonoluminescence and sonochemical transformations are well described physical and chemical phenomena resulting from the process of acoustic cavitation: the formation, growth and implosive collapse of gas bubbles in a fluid. The occurrence of sonochemical processes in the marine environment remains largely conjectural although bubble cavitation itself is known to be associated with breaking waves, impacting raindrops and other turbulent flow regimes found in the ocean and a range of aqueous environments. This study combines the expertise of marine chemists and a sea-surface physicist at the University of Connecticut Marine Sciences Department in a focused attempt to delineate whether cavitation energy levels actually present in surface ocean conditions and specifically of natural bubble fields could, or could not, be sufficiently energetic to call for additional consideration of any direct chemical consequences.