Word: electricizers
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Kim Gallagher has a plan for America's "blue highways," the thousands of miles of dusty, old, single-lane heritage routes that wend desolately through the countryside: turn them green. Superseded by high-speed interstates, many of these narrow byways have been long forgotten, along with the faded small towns...
Last week, they published their accidental discovery that oppositely charged water drops will not stay together in strong electric fields. And the authors say their finding sheds new light on how oil companies, which must condense water droplets as part of the refining process, can operate more efficiently.
As part of the refining process, oil companies use electric fields to separate the oil and water both present when oil is drilled. That process of electrocoalescence, an amped-up version of what naturally occurs with oil and vinegar in salad dressing, uses electric fields to make oppositely charged water...
“What’s new is that above a critical electric field, the water drops show a direct contact and repel—against what is believed [will happen],” said Bird, a Harvard doctoral student in engineering. Instead of infinitely increasing the coalescing speed...
“The electric field is bringing the drops together until they contact, and then it’s just geometry from there on—nothing to do with electric fields,” said Bird.