Break-up behavior of droplets containing chlorine salt with the same valence cation under electric field via molecular dynamics simulation

Abstract

Application of the electric field to water-in-oil system can accelerate the coalescence of droplets. However, when an excessively high electric field is applied, droplets will exhibit break-up behavior. In addition to the strength of the electric field, the salt type in droplets significantly affects their break-up behavior. However, the break-up behavior of droplets containing the same valence cation is rarely investigated, and the mechanism underlying the influence of ionic type remains unclear. In this study, the break-up behavior of droplets containing chlorine salt with the same valence cation is studied by molecular dynamics simulations. The influences of electric field strength and ionic type on the break-up behavior of droplets are analyzed. Simulation results demonstrate that the droplet deformation increases with the increase in the electric field, and the droplets break when the degree of deformation exceeds a critical value. The ionic type mainly affects the break-up time of droplets through drift velocity, which is proportional to the electric field strength and ionic mobility. Moreover, from Na⁺ to Cs⁺, the cationic mobility increases first and then decreases with the increase of crystallographic radius.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Break-up behavior
• molecular dynamics
• same valence cation
• chlorine salt
• uniform electric field

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 16CX06016A), the Graduate Innovation Project of China University of Petroleum (East China) (Grant No. YCXJ2016058), and the Key Pre-Research Foundation of Military Equipment of China (Grant No. 6140923030702).