Bubble's can make a significant difference; 25 yeas ago I was studying some decompositions that generated very small quantities of nitrogen gas. This lead to artifactual oxygen consumption. This initial assumption was wrong, and it was in fact due to small microliter sized bubble formation. The effect on the dissolved O2 concentration of the attainment of O2 gas equilibrium with the small total volume of N2 gas liberated as micro-bubbles actually accounted for this effect. If one modeled the decomposition and the N2 bubbles (which had a total initial volume of ~22.4 µL/mL of buffer), reached equilibrium with the dissolved N2 and O2 gases in solution; using Henry's gas solubility law, the result is in excellent agreement with the experimental data. The result was also corroborated experimentally by stirring an identical air saturated buffer solution in the Oxygraph, and then injecting ~22.4 µL of pure N2 gas/mL of solution. On stirring, this resulted in the equivalent apparent O2 consumption. Recently I decided to publish these findings to prevent others falling into the same trap. This paper will come out very shortly in the Journal of ROS (reactive oxygen species) possibly in just a week or so.
All the best, Phil
Julissa Mejía.
The paper describing this effect has now been published in JROS I have attached a copy for your convenience.
All the best, Phil