Nozzleless EHD Spraying for Fine Droplet Production in Liquid-In-Liquid System

Electrostatic atomization technology is useful to produce fine droplets with narrow size distribution. However, droplet production rate has been very low compared to other methods such as solid injection, pneumatic, and rotating. In liquid-in-liquid system, nozzleless droplet formation was proposed using membrane filter and applying electrostatics. The atomization pattern was categorized into three modes, i.e., dripping, transient, and spray modes. Water glass aqueous solution was atomized in kerosene from 300 mum to 200 nm by applying 0 to 2 kV positive dc voltages. Comparing between a single nozzle and the proposed nozzleless system, based on the similar average diameters and size distributions, production rate of the droplets was 53 times (in the dripping mode) and 6.4 times (in the spray mode) higher in the case of nozzleless system than that of a single nozzle.