Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS IN HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER, cilt.172, sa.2, ss.1-18, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
During water electrolysis, nanobubbles that form on the electrode surface block the electrode and hinder the electrochemical reaction. At the molecular scale, the nucleation process of nanobubbles is extremely complex, and there is only a limited quantitative understanding of how environmental factors influence nanobubble morphology and nucleation. This work introduces entropy into the study of nanobubble nucleation to investigate mass and heat transport in a two-phase medium. Based on molecular dynamics simulations, the change in entropy during nucleation is evaluated, and the effects of various ambient parameters, including wettability and the length, structure of the electrode and temperature, on nucleation processes are investigated. Furthermore, statistical thermodynamics is used to examine the behavior and characteristics of nanobubbles as well as the mechanism of nanobubble nucleation. The results show that increasing the length of the electrode significantly prolongs the nucleation and growth phases of nanobubbles. Surfaces with lower wettability can adsorb the gas molecules generated on the electrode, reducing gas coverage on the electrode surface and thus increasing the reaction rate. When a wettability gradient is present on the surface, differences in wettability reduce the energy barrier to nucleation or accelerate the accumulation rate of local supersaturation, reducing the nucleation time by 33%. In the induction stage, the change in system entropy is not significant and even shows a decrease, which is the main reason for delayed nucleation. During the nucleation and growth stage, in most cases the entropy change of the system increases, indicating that the disorder of the system is enhanced and promotes the development of nucleation.