Electrohydrodynamic atomization (EHDA) of high-conductivity pure solvent

ABSTRACT

In this study, the effects of flow rate, liquid conductivity and neutralizer strength on the operating and output characteristics are examined for an Electrohydrodynamic atomization (EHDA)-based aerosol generator system, designed and built in our laboratory. Ethylene glycol is used for generating the droplets. It is seen that stable cone-jet mode could be obtained for solvent conductivity as high as 240 μS/cm. While the output number concentration was found to increase with both flow rate and conductivity, the mean particle diameters decreased with increasing conductivity and increased with flow rate. The mean droplet size and output number concentration are found to be about three times more sensitive to changes in conductivity as compared to that of flow rate in the range of 26–150 μS/cm. It is also observed that throughput from the system is strongly dependent on the strength of the charge neutralizer. In the present setup, 8 μCi ²⁴¹Am bipolar neutralizer in axisymmetric configuration was found to be sufficient to neutralize the generated droplets.