Electrostatic hand pressure knapsack spray system with enhanced performance for small scale farms

Electrostatic force fields have been employed and enhanced in the design of an electrostatic knapsack spray system for increasing the deposition efficiency and reducing the drift of pesticides. The designed induction charge based electrostatic sprayer offers optimum electrode position and electrical conductivity of liquid. The experiments were conducted in ambient conditions for liquid feed rate 340 ml/min at hand pressure of 30 psi. The charge-to-mass ratio was found to be 0.419 mC/kg at 3.25 kV by a spray liquid of conductivity 10.25 mS/cm. There has been 2–3 fold increase of chemical deposition with better uniformity on the target (potted plant).