Decompression sickness bubbles: are gas micronuclei formed on a flat hydrophobic surface?

Abstract

It is a long-standing hypothesis that the bubbles which evolve as a result of decompression have their origin in stable gas micronuclei lodged in hydrophobic crevices, micelles of surface-active molecules, or tribonucleation. Recent findings supported by atomic force microscopy have indicated that tiny, flat nanobubbles form spontaneously on smooth, hydrophobic surfaces submerged in water. We propose that these nanobubbles may be the gas micronuclei responsible for the bubbles that evolve to cause decompression sickness. To support our hypothesis, we used hydrophilic and monolayer-covered hydrophobic smooth silicon wafers. The experiment was conducted in three main stages. Double distilled water was degassed at the low pressure of 5.60 kPa; hydrophobic and hydrophilic silicon wafers were placed in a bowl of degassed water and left overnight at normobaric pressure. The bowl was then placed in the hyperbaric chamber for 15 h at a pressure of 1013 kPa (=90 m sea water). After decompression, bubbles were observed and photographed. The results showed that bubbles only evolved on the hydrophobic surfaces following decompression. There are numerous hydrophobic surfaces within the living body (e.g., in the large blood vessels), which may thus be the sites where nanobubbles that serve as gas micronuclei for bubble evolution following decompression are formed.