2017 Volume 54 Issue 7 Pages 448-453
Electrostatic levitation allows a monitoring of solidification behavior of single levitated microdroplet. In this paper, novel designed slim-type electrodynamic balance (EDB) coupled with the microscope is evaluated. It enabled us in situ observation of internal mixing of microdroplet with sufficient spatial and time resolutions. With this instrument, we directly observed the crystal growth from the micodroplet of inorganic salt such as NaCl, NaBr, NaI, KCl, KBr and KI, respectively. The morphologies of produced crystal particles were divided into three types, 1) rectangular solid crystal for KCl or KBr with high crystallization relative humidity (CRH), 2) multi-crystalline particle with crystal habit for NaCl and KI with medium CRH and 3) hollow particles for NaBr and NaI droplets with low CRH. The morphologies of the produced particles were more strongly influenced by CRH rather than supersaturation.
