Why do Particle Clouds Generate Electric Charges?
arXiv:1003.5188 · doi:10.1038/nphys1631
Abstract
Grains in desert sandstorms spontaneously generate strong electrical charges; likewise volcanic dust plumes produce spectacular lightning displays. Charged particle clouds also cause devastating explosions in food, drug and coal processing industries. Despite the wide-ranging importance of granular charging in both nature and industry, even the simplest aspects of its causes remain elusive, because it is difficult to understand how inert grains in contact with little more than other inert grains can generate the large charges observed. Here, we present a simple yet predictive explanation for the charging of granular materials in collisional flows. We argue from very basic considerations that charge transfer can be expected in collisions of identical dielectric grains in the presence of an electric field, and we confirm the model's predictions using discrete-element simulations and a tabletop granular experiment.
References in corpus (2)
Cited by in corpus (29)
- Network Analysis of Particles and Grains
- Size-dependent same-material tribocharging in insulating grains
- Collisional Charging of Individual Sub-Millimeter Particles: Using Ultrasonic Levitation to Initiate and Track Charge Transfer
- Electric Field and Humidity Trigger Contact Electrification
- Triboelectric charging of volcanic ash from the 2011 Grímsvötn eruption
- Small Solar System Bodies as granular media
- Effect of long-range repulsive Coulomb interactions on packing structure of adhesive particles
- Single-collision statistics reveal a global mechanism driven by sample history for contact electrification in granular media
- Self-charging of identical grains in the absence of an external field
- Cluster-induced deagglomeration in dilute gravity-driven gas-solid flows of cohesive grains
- Charge injection into the atmosphere by explosive volcanic eruptions through triboelectrification and fragmentation charging
- Early-stage aggregation in three-dimensional charged granular gas
- Temperature Dependence of Nylon and PTFE Triboelectrification
- Detection of spark discharges in an agitated Mars dust simulant isolated from foreign surfaces
- Field Driven Charging Dynamics of a Fluidized Granular Bed
- Free Cooling Phase-Diagram of Hard-Spheres with Short- and Long-Range Interactions
- Precision measurement of tribocharging in acoustically levitated sub-millimeter grains
- Observation of bottom-up formation for charged grain aggregates related to pre-planetary evolution beyond the bouncing barrier
- The growth of super-large pre-planetary pebbles to an impact erosion limit
- The generation and sustenance of electric fields in sandstorms
- Electrically induced tunable cohesion in granular systems
- Violation of triboelectric charge conservation on colliding particles
- Lifting of Tribocharged Grains by Martian Winds
- Multiple timescale contact charging
- Evolutionary strategy for inverse charge measurements of dielectric particles
- Asteroid impact, Schumann resonances and the end of dinosaurs
- Runaway electrification of friable self-replicating granular matter
- Powerful lightning on Venus constrained by atmospheric NO
- Band bending and ratcheting explain triboelectricity in a flexoelectric contact diode