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Solid‐to‐Liquid Charge Transfer for Generating Droplets with Tunable Charge
Author(s) -
Sun Yajuan,
Huang Xu,
Soh Siowling
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201604378
Subject(s) - contact electrification , triboelectric effect , solid surface , charge (physics) , electrostatic induction , surface charge , charged particle , electric charge , materials science , chemical physics , voltage , electrostatics , contact angle , nanotechnology , chemistry , electrode , electrical engineering , ion , physics , composite material , organic chemistry , quantum mechanics , engineering
Charged liquid droplets are typically generated by a high‐voltage power supply. Herein, a previously unreported method is used for charging liquid droplets: by transferring charge from an insulating solid surface charged by contact electrification to the droplets. Charging the solid surface by contact electrification involves bringing it into contact with another solid surface for generating static charge. Subsequently, water droplets that flow across the surface are found to be charged—thus, the charge is readily transferred from solid to liquid. The charge of the droplets can be tuned continuously from positive to negative by varying the way the solid surface is charged. The amount of charge generated is sufficient for manipulating, coalescing, and sorting the water droplets by solid surfaces charged by contact electrification. This method of generating charged droplets is general, simple, inexpensive, and does not need any additional equipment or power supply.