At the 10th Keio Techno-Mall, in December 2009 at Tokyo International Forum, results of microbubble research were exhibited in the Terasaka Laboratory booth. Microbubbles are just a few microns in diameter. Because microbubbles behave differently from ordinary bubbles in liquids, theyre expected to have many applications. Q. As an application of microbubbles, theyve been used quite often in practice for water purification in agriculture or lakes. But so far, there havent been many advances in applying them to materials with new functions, for example chemical functions. But if the special properties of microbubbles are added to various chemical products, its possible to obtain materials with very high added value or with great significance for the environment. So were pursuing these possibilities aggressively. At Kei Techno-Mall, two research results were presented, based on Professor Terasakas ideas. One was functional materials using microbubbles. Q. Among the various properties of microbubbles is that, because theyre very small, its hard for them to escape from the liquid phase. So where theres a microbubble, the liquid is excluded from that space, and consequently, the overall specific gravity becomes very low. Weve used this property by encapsulating microbubbles in gel beads. As you can see, the red gel beads dont contain microbubbles, but the blue gel beads do. When we agitate the beads like this, those with the microbubbles and those without mix in the same way …

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