Immiscible Rayleigh-Taylor turbulence: Implications for bacterial degradation in oil spills.

ABSTRACT: An unstable density stratification between two fluids mixes spontaneously under the effect of gravity, a phenomenon known as Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) turbulence. If the two fluids are immiscible, for example, oil and water, surface tension prevents intermixing at the molecular level. However, turbulence fragments one fluid into the other, generating an emulsion in which the typical droplet size decreases over time as a result of the competition between the rising kinetic energy and the surface energy density. Even though the first phenomenological theory describing this emulsification process was derived many years ago, it has remained elusive to experimental verification, hampering our ability to predict the fate of oil in applications such as deep-water spills. Here, we provide the first exp

SUBMITTER: Brizzolara S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10945856 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature