Buoyancy-Driven Breakup of an Isolated Drop with Surfactant

At moderate values of the surface Peclet number and the dimensionless gas constant, a surfactant-covered, isolated drop that is initially spherical can undergo large deformations and eventually break in inertialess gravitational motion. A long, thin filament forms, extending from the trailing edge of the drop, with a breakup mechanism that is similar to tip streaming. In the range of parameters studied, the emitted drop has an equivalent spherical radius between 0.01 to 0.03 of the original drop radius and an interfacial tension from 0.2 to 0.6 of the clean-interface value.