Abstract
Tiny bubbles in water have large specific area and long residence time in a tank. Because of these characteristics, they are used to enhance the mass transfer between gas and liquid phase in chemical reactors, aeration tanks for water purification systems etc. Also, there are a lot of expectations in the medical filed. Microbubbles, whose diameter is less than 5 have been already used as contrast agents of ultrasound diagnosis through the injection into veins. These microbubbles are expected to be further utilized as drug delivery agents through the development of special device to control the microbubble functions. In this paper, the recent advances on these microbubble studies are explained and the microbubble generator using microchannel, which has good controllability on bubble size and numbers, are briefly introduced.
