Everlasting Bubble Did Not Pop For 465 Days: How Did Scientists Maintain Its Integrity and Shape?

Bubbles are transparent and can easily pop. This mechanism could be triggered by its environment, such as the gravity-induced drainage that evaporates the liquid in them. Also, Laplace overpressure could cause them to shrink.

But a team of physicists led by Aymeric Roux from the University of Lille in France found a way to make an everlasting bubble that maintained its shape and integrity for more than one year. They designed a bubble made of a composite liquid film that allows it to keep its integrity in a standard atmosphere.

Why Bubbles Pop?

According to Science Sparks, a bubble is made up of air wrapped in soapy water formed when soap molecules reduce the surface tension, so it stretches when there is air. Bubbles could form the smallest possible shape to trap air inside, with the most common one being the sphere that gives the least surface area for the volume of air.

Generally, bubbles easily pop because of an atmospheric setting in which gravity drains the material from the bubble, so the remaining liquid is evaporated. Even the presence of a tiny nucleus of air destabilizes and pops it.

That means even when the bubble is not popped, it will still pop on its when the water evaporates. That is why bubbles could last longer during a cold day. Usually, glycerin or glycerol is added to homemade bubble mixes not to evaporate so quickly.

Everlasting Bubble Lasted for 465 Days Without Popping

Unlike the usual bubbles that are pretty and shimmering with shifting iridescence, the bubble researchers from France created is made with the help of glycerin and is covered with microparticles.

They wrote in their paper, titled "Everlasting Bubbles and Liquid Films Resisting Drainage, Evaporation, and Nuclei-Induced Bursting," published in Physical Review Fluids, the two materials inhibit gravity-induced drainage from creating a stable state where the hygroscopicity of glycerol counterbalanced the evaporation of water to prevent it from popping or shrinking.

Science Alert reported that the team maintained the shape and integrity of the bubble without significant evolution of its radius. To test whether they could expand their lifespan, they used "gas marbles," gas bubbles made of liquid and partially wetting particles. The marbles were able to maintain structural integrity even when touched.

The team also tried experimenting with other types of bubbles. They tried soap bubbles as a point of comparison and constructed gas marbles of nylon particles and water, as well as nylon particles mixed with water and glycerol.

Naturally, the soap bubbles did not last longer than a minute. Meanwhile, water-based gas marbles survived between six to 50 minutes. But what amazes the physicists are the glycerol-water marbles that survived for longer than 101 days, wherein the longest bubble popped until after 465 days.

Physicists explained that this is due to glycerol, a hygroscopic material that means "water seeking" material because it absorbs moisture from its surroundings and the atmosphere. They noted that nylon particles prevented the membranes of the bubble to drain away due to gravity. When the bubble loses water due to evaporation, glycerol replenishes the moisture, so it becomes impervious to being popped by a tiny nucleus of air.

Check out more news and information on Physics and Math in Science Times.