Bubble Formation in Pulsed Electric Field Technology May Pose Limitations

Currently, increasing amounts of pulsed electric fields (PEF) are employed to improve a person's life quality. This technology is based on the application of the shortest high voltage electrical pulse, which generates an increment over the cell membrane permeability. When applying these pulses, an unwanted effect is electrolysis, which could alter the treatment. This work focused on the study of the local variations of the electric field and current density around the bubbles formed by the electrolysis of water by PEF technology and how these variations alter the electroporation protocol. The assays, in the present work, were carried out at 2 KV/cm, 1.2 KV/cm and 0.6 KV/cm in water, adjusting the conductivity with NaCl at 2365 μs/cm with a single pulse of 800 μs. The measurements of the bubble diameter variations due to electrolysis as a function of time allowed us to develop an experimental model of the behavior of the bubble diameter vs. time, which was used for simulation purposes. In the in silico model, we calculated that the electric field and observed an increment of current density around the bubble can be up to four times the base value due to the edge effect around it, while the thermal effects were undesirable due to the short duration of the pulses (variations of ±0.1 °C are undesirable). This research revealed that the rise of electric current is not just because of the shift in electrical conductivity due to chemical and thermal effects, but also varies with the bubble coverage over the electrode surface and variations in the local electric field by edge effect. All these variations can conduce to unwanted limitations over PEF treatment. In the future, we recommend tests on the variation of local current conductivity and electric fields.