Coalescence and breakup of oppositely charged droplets

Abstract

The coalescence process of oppositely charged drops for different electrical conductivities of liquids is presented. When the electrical conductivity was relatively low, oppositely charged drops failed to coalesce under sufficiently high electrical fields and capillary ripples were formed on the surfaces of droplets after rebound. For a high electrically conductive liquid, it was found that a crown profile of drop fission always appeared on the top surface of negatively charged drops after the two charged drops contacted and bounced off. Furthermore, we report here, for the first time, the newly found phenomenon and argue that the break up might be caused by Rayleigh instability, a form of Coulomb fission. The different mobility of positive and negative ions is the underlying mechanism that explains why the break up always happened on the negative side of charged drops.