Acoustic cavitation at low gas pressures in PZT-based ultrasonic systems

The generation of cavitation-free radicals through evanescent electric field and bulk-streaming was reported when micro-volumes of a liquid were subjected to 10 MHz surface acoustic waves (SAW) on a piezoelectric substrate [Rezk et al., J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2020, 11, 4655-4661; Rezk et al., Adv. Sci. 2021, 8, 2001983]. In the current study, we have tested a similar hypothesis with PZT-based ultrasonic units (760 kHz and 2 MHz) with varying dissolved gas concentrations, by sonochemiluminescence measurement and iodide dosimetry, to correlate radical generation with dissolved gas concentrations. The dissolved gas concentration was adjusted by controlling the over-head gas pressure. Our study reveals that there is a strong correlation between sonochemical activity and dissolved gas concentration, with negligible sonochemical activity at near-vacuum conditions. We therefore conclude that radical generation is dominated by acoustic cavitation in conventional PZT-based ultrasonic reactors, regardless of the excitation frequency.