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Updated: May 29, 2026

Expired CO2 Measurement in Intubated or Spontaneously Breathing Patients from the Emergency Department
Published on: January 29, 2011
Temperature-controlled 'breathing' of carbon dioxide bubbles
Ethan Tumarkin1, Zhihong Nie, Jai Il Park
1Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Abstract:
We report a microfluidic (MF) approach to studies of temperature mediated carbon dioxide (CO(2)) transfer between the gas and the liquid phases. Micrometre-diameter CO(2) bubbles with a narrow size distribution were generated in an aqueous or organic liquid and subsequently were subjected to temperature changes in the downstream channel. In response to the cooling-heating-cooling cycle the bubbles underwent corresponding contraction-expansion-contraction transitions, which we term 'bubble breathing'. We examined temperature-controlled dissolution of CO(2) in four exemplary liquid systems: deionized water, a 0.7 M aqueous solution of NaCl, ocean water extracted from Bermuda coastal waters, and dimethyl ether of poly(ethylene glycol), a solvent used in industry for absorption of CO(2). The MF approach can be extended to studies of other gases with a distinct, temperature-dependent solubility in liquids.
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