Negative charge acquisition by isolated single microdroplets from plasma exposure at atmospheric pressure

Tools

Hendawy, Nourhan E and McQuaid, Harold N and Mag Uidhir, Somhairle and Rutherford, David and Diver, Declan and Mariotti, Davide and Maguire, Paul (2026) Negative charge acquisition by isolated single microdroplets from plasma exposure at atmospheric pressure. Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, 59 (3). 035203. ISSN 1361-6463 (https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6463/ae3326)

[thumbnail of Hendawy-etal-JPD-2026-Negative-charge-acquisition-by-isolated-single-microdroplets-from-plasma-exposure]
Preview
 Text. Filename: Hendawy-etal-JPD-2026-Negative-charge-acquisition-by-isolated-single-microdroplets-from-plasma-exposure.pdf
Final Published Version
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 logo
Download (1MB)| Preview

Abstract

Charged liquid microdroplets have generated significant interest recently due to the observation of chemical reaction rate enhancement by orders of magnitude. Droplet charging by plasma irradiation has been observed along with significantly enhanced reaction rates in liquid. In this paper, we measure the charge on fixed size (47 μm) individual droplets, exposed for approximately 4 ms to a low temperature RF-driven plasma operated at atmospheric pressure. The measured charge values ranged from 2.5 to 3.5 × 106 electrons, depending on the droplet trajectory. Results were compared with finite element simulations of plasma charging, which provided estimates of surface electric fields and charge fluxes at the droplet surface and helped advance the development of a theoretical framework for plasma-charged microreactors.

ORCID iDs

Hendawy, Nourhan E, McQuaid, Harold N, Mag Uidhir, Somhairle, Rutherford, David, Diver, Declan, Mariotti, Davide ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1504-4383 and Maguire, Paul;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)