Deformation of liquid drops containing ions in the presence of an electric field

Abstract

Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Malta, 16-18 July, 2012.

The deformation and breakup of a conducting water drop immersed in hexadecane in the presence of an electric field is investigated using a numerical tool for a range of field strengths and ion concentrations. At low electric field strengths, the drop deformation is a linear function of the electric capillary number. For high electric field strengths, the dependence is no longer linear, and significant drop deformation occurs. The drop deformation increases with increasing ion concentration, due to a separation of ions within the drop, leading to a redistribution of charge at either end of the drop.