When two bubbles come into contact, their fate is one of the following:
1. become two closely matched bubbles that share a single film.
2. fuse completely into one larger bubble.
The bubble solution of only water and dishwashing detergent is much more likely to be case 1. When polymers are added to this bubble solution, case 2 is more likely than case 1. The difference is striking when two solutions with water and dishwashing detergent prepared under the same conditions and differing only in the presence or absence of polymers are tested side by side.
As is well known, polymers are involved in the ability of self-healing and can detach the bubble from the film without causing the film to fail. However, the above facts suggest that polymers have not only the ability to "close" or "separate" but also to "open" or "fuse". Two seemingly contradictory abilities, but the same mechanism may be expressed in different ways.
By the way...
The structure of surfactants and the structure of phospholipids are both known to be amphiphilic. The basic structure of the cell membrane is a lipid bilayer, which is made up of two layers of phospholipids with their hydrophobic groups facing each other. This is just the opposite of a bubble, an "anti-bubble" so to speak.
In the "cell fusion" technique, a water-soluble polymer (PEG) is used to trigger the fusion: two neighboring living cells immersed in a PEG solution fuse their bilayers together, triggered by the PEG, and become one cell.
Isn't this an interesting similarity?
Reference: https://www.slideshare.net/ilo0lo0/fusion-of-cells-by-peg-and-inactivated-virus
quote:
What actually PEG do to fuse the cells?
- Altering the structure and dielectic properties of water
- Altering the molecular order of the bilayer at the point of contact due tu aggregation and dehydration.
- Induction of non-bilayer structures.
- Acting as a detergent to disrupt bilayer structure.
- Binding to and cross-linking vesicles.
- Inducting phase separation that destabilizes the bilayer.