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Why do particle clouds generate electric charges?

Nature Physics volume 6, pages 364–368 (2010)Cite this article

Abstract

Grains in desert sandstorms spontaneously generate strong electrical charges; likewise volcanic dust plumes produce spectacular lightning displays. Charged particle clouds also cause devastating explosions in food, drug and coal processing industries. Despite the wide-ranging importance of granular charging in both nature and industry, even the simplest aspects of its causes remain elusive, because it is difficult to understand how inert grains in contact with little more than other inert grains can generate the large charges observed. Here, we present a simple yet predictive explanation for the charging of granular materials in collisional flows. We argue from very basic considerations that charge transfer can be expected in collisions of identical dielectric grains in the presence of an electric field, and we confirm the model’s predictions using discrete-element simulations and a tabletop granular experiment.

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Figure 1: Proposed charging mechanism of colliding particles in an electric field.
Figure 2: Simulation results.
Figure 3: Experiment.
Figure 4: Numbers of levitated grains in experiments and simulations.

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Acknowledgements

We thank E. Strombom for her dedicated experimental work, and we thank the National Science Foundation, Division of Chemical and Transport Systems and the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, project ETH-10 09-2 for financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute für Baustoffe, ETH-Zürich, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland

    T. Pähtz, H. J. Herrmann & T. Shinbrot

  2. Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Campus do Pici, Ceará, 60451-970 Fortaleza, Brazil

    H. J. Herrmann

  3. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA

    T. Shinbrot

Authors
  1. T. Pähtz
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  2. H. J. Herrmann
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  3. T. Shinbrot
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Contributions

T.P. carried out the simulations. H.J.H. directed the simulations and provided geophysical expertise. T.S. conceived the project, constructed the experiment, carried out the analysis and prepared the initial manuscript. All authors discussed the results and implications and commented on the manuscript at all stages.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to T. Shinbrot.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Pähtz, T., Herrmann, H. & Shinbrot, T. Why do particle clouds generate electric charges?. Nature Phys 6, 364–368 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1631

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