MECHANISM OF ELECTROSTATIC POLYDISPERSION OF LIQUID

The parameters of disintegration of a charged drop in an invariable uniform electric field are calculated on the basis of the principle of extremity of the free energy variation. It is shown that irrespective of the value of the drop ’s own charge, with the development of Tonks-Frenkel instability in it, the drop emits a great number of highly dispersing heavily charged sibling droplets, unstable in accordance with the Rayleigh stability limit, into the surrounding space. The emitted siblings disrupt within a period of time of the order of their oscillation period, ejecting still smaller and also unstable fine droplets. This results in the formation of a polydispersing spectrum of dimensions of the emitted siblings. The charge-to-mass ratio for the siblings increases approximately by two orders with each series of disintegrations. During the process of disruption a drop unstable in accordance with the Rayleigh limit loses about 30% of its charge and around 0.5% of its mass, ejecting about 40 small charged droplets which are also unstable in accordance with the Rayleigh stability limit. © 1990 IOP Publishing Ltd.