DROP INTERACTIONS IN ELECTRIC-FIELDS ACROSS TILTED PARALLEL-PLATE ELECTRODES

This paper is concerned with mutual interactions between liquid drops translating in an immiscible, dielectric liquid medium confined by a p air of tilted parallel-plate electrodes, across which a steady electri c field is being applied. Each drop exhibits a bouncing motion between the electrodes, exchanging a net charge on it on each impact with eit her electrode. The performance of a liquid-liquid contactor utilizing such bouncing motions of drops, if provided, will be limited by a need for averting mutual coalescence of neighboring drops charged opposite ly to each other from time to time. Thus, the critical conditions for drop coalescence have been defined experimentally, and the motions of paired drops exerting mutual interactions have been analyzed theoretic ally to predict the critical conditions for coalescence.