Electro-Hydrodynamic Shooting Phenomenon of Liquid Metal Stream

TL;DR

This paper investigates an electro-hydrodynamic phenomenon where liquid metal is ejected and formed into droplets under a small electric field, with controllable droplet size and motion, useful for large-scale metal droplet production.

Contribution

It introduces a novel electro-hydrodynamic shooting method for liquid metal, demonstrating controllable droplet generation and manipulation.

Findings

Droplet ejection velocity increases with applied voltage.

Droplet size is determined by capillary aperture.

Droplets can be manipulated by electrodes.

Abstract

We reported an electro-hydrodynamic shooting phenomenon of liquid metal stream. A small voltage direct current electric field would induce ejection of liquid metal inside capillary tube and then shooting into sodium hydroxide solution to form discrete droplets. The shooting velocity has positive relationship with the applied voltage while the droplet size is dominated by the aperture diameter of the capillary nozzle. Further, the motion of the liquid metal droplets can be flexibly manipulated by the electrodes. This effect suggests an easy going way to generate metal droplets in large quantity, which is important from both fundamental and practical aspects.