Drop Interactions in Electric Fields across Tilted Parallel-Plate Electrodes

Abstract

This paper is concerned with mutual interactions between liquid drops translating in an immiscible, dielectric liquid medium confined by a pair of tilted parallel-plate electrodes, across which a steady electric field is being applied. Each drop exhibits a bouncing motion between the electrodes, exchanging a net charge on it on each impact with either electrode. The performance of a liquid-liquid contactor utilizing such bouncing motions of drops, if provided, will be limited by a need for averting mutual coalescence of neighboring drops charged oppositely to each other from time to time. Thus, the critical conditions for drop coalescence have been defined experimentally, and the motions of paired drops exerting mutual interactions have been analyzed theoretically to predict the critical conditions for coalescence.