Patent ID: 8202369

Claim:
A method for cleaning a surface comprising: selecting a range of bubble sizes to be created in a liquid; selecting characteristics of an acoustic field to be applied to the liquid; providing a surface to be cleaned in contact with the liquid; creating gas bubbles of the selected range of bubble sizes in the liquid near the surface to be cleaned, the creating gas bubbles comprising dissolving gas in the liquid using a gasification unit, injecting gas into the liquid using one of a bubbler system, a capillary, a nozzle, and a membrane contactor, or subjecting the liquid to a pressure drop, one or more compression/decompression cycles, an increase in temperature or one or more heating/cooling cycles; creating a fixed acoustic field with the selected characteristics; and subjecting the liquid with created bubbles to the fixed acoustic field to obtain cavitating liquid, and subjecting the surface to be cleaned to the cavitating liquid, wherein the range of bubble sizes is selected subsequent to and in dependence on the selection of the characteristics of the acoustic field so as to generate and control transient cavitation in the liquid near the surface to be cleaned upon subjecting the liquid with the bubbles to the fixed acoustic field.