Abstract
A water model of the lab scale electrolysis cell presented previously has been constructed to investigate bubble coalescence and movement under a surface with varying inclination. Bubble generation is simulated by passing N2 gas through a porous ceramic plate representing the anode. Experiments have been performed with three different liquids; tap-water, and tap-water mixed with ethanol and NaCl, aiming primarily to study the influence of varying surface tension at different anode inclinations and gas flow rates. Gas bubble behavior is tracked using a high speed camera. A strong dependence upon fluid properties is observed when considering the gas flow behavior with respect to bubble size, velocities and flow pattern in general. The results indicate that only the NaCl solution is able to reproduce the self-organized state expected from corresponding electrolysis experiments. Results indicate that this feature is mainly due to different wetting behavior of the different fluids considered.
