Kinetics of protein microbubble dissolution in aqueous medium

Microbubbles are emerging as a potential candidate for numerous biomedical applications. Stability of microbubble decides the fate of microbubble in in-vivo performance. In this work, we study the kinetics of microbubble dissolution in aqueous medium. We formulate a mass transfer model for the dissolution of protein microbubble in aqueous media. The model takes into account the effect of shell properties on microbubble dissolution. The shell parameters which can influence the dissolution behavior of the microbubbles are the permeability of shell, shell elasticity and interfacial surface tension. However, these parameters are unknown for microbubbles with protein shells. To estimate the unknown model parameters first, the protein microbubble dissolution was captured using optical microscope. The radius v/s time data thus obtained, was then used to estimate the shell parameters by solving ODE constrained/single objective optimization problem. Simulation results suggest that the shell resistance is dependent upon the total dissolution time of the microbubble and the surface tension varies continuously during the dissolution of the microbubble. The results also suggest that the permeation resistance for the transport of gases from the bubble to the surrounding is different for different sizes of the bubble.