Bubbles as a means for the deaeration of water bodies

Occasional dissolved-air supersaturation - such as may occur, for instance, downstream of dams - is harmful to fish because it causes gas bubble disease. A counterintuitive but effective means of reducing dissolved air content is the injection of bubbles in the supersaturated water. The bubbles greatly increase the air-water surface area available for the exsolution of the dissolved air, bring the interface into direct contact with the supersaturated water, and mix the water with their ascensional motion. This paper is a computational study of the process. The results suggest that the method has great potential and may be effective in applications.