Monodisperse water microdroplets generated by electrohydrodynamic atomization in the simple-jet mode

Abstract

Experiments were conducted in order to investigate the influences of flow rate, applied voltage, and electric conductivity on droplet size and size distribution of water electrosprays in the simple-jet mode. The results show that the electric potential decreases significantly the relative standard deviation (RSD) of the spray size distribution, with the best result obtained for Weber number, We = 3.3 (240 ml/h) when the RSD decreases from 0.50 at 0 kV to 0.18 at 5 kV. We conclude that simple-jet mode electrosprays are a good option for applications which require monodisperse micrometer droplets with high throughput.