Kinetics of charging of drops formed from a stimulated jet of conducting liquid

Abstract

The capillary instability of a circular liquid jet leads to the formation of liquid drops. By imposing a suitable initial perturbation it is possible obtain identical drops. In the case of an electrically conducting liquid, these drops can be individually and differently charged and subsequently separated by a constant electric field. For charging, one electrode is the conducting jet itself, connected to ground by the tank, and the other one is assumed here to be a coaxial metallic cylinder. The authors focus mainly on the kinetics of charging when a step voltage is applied to the external cylindrical electrode. A model that predicts the potential of the drop versus time after application of a voltage step, for a given shape of the jet is proposed. The time required for fully charging a drop is evaluated, and the influence of a delay in the application of charging voltage is examined.<>