Electrostatic Effects of Corona Discharge on the Spectrum and Density Evolution of Water Droplets in Air

As one of the emerging application areas of the corona discharge technique, rain enhancement induced by atmospheric air ionization has made a great breakthrough. Although natural rainfall modified by artificial ionization was successfully observed via the statistical data of field experiments, deficient efforts have been devoted to the research on the near-field effect of corona discharge on the evolution of water droplets around the discharge device. In this article, we studied the electrostatic effects of corona discharge on the spectrum and density evolution of water droplets in a 96-m3 cloud chamber. An interesting phenomenon was found that two different electrostatic effects appeared when various high voltages were applied on the corona electrode. In detail, the growth of droplets larger than $10~\mu \text{m}$ was detected once the applied high voltage exceeds the critical value (e.g. −80 kV in our discharge device), and this is attributed to the electrostatic induction effect. By contrast, a narrow droplet size spectrum and reduced density caused by the strong electrostatic precipitation effect were shown below this critical voltage. To figure out the mechanisms underlying these phenomena, the charging status of water droplets with various sizes, forces of charged droplets under various electric field strength, and collision kernels between droplets, are analyzed through theoretical calculations. Results show that the electric field plays a dominant role in the charging process of droplets and the acceleration of collision-coalescence between charged and neutral droplets, which results in the different electrostatic effects on the evolution of droplets. This article may provide some enlightenment to fog elimination in industrial application and cloud-seeding in atmospheric water resources comprehensive utilization.