Hackaday · Maken

Charged Water Drops Can Induce Corrosion

A study published in Nature reveals that sliding water droplets can accumulate significant electric potential, leading to corrosion of metal surfaces, even those with protective coatings.

Researchers found that water droplets sliding down a surface can charge up to over 1 kV. When these charged droplets then hit a metal surface, they can induce significant corrosion.

Even when the metal surface was coated with an insulating layer, such as Teflon in the study, the charged droplets gradually broke down the coating, exposing the underlying metal.

The mechanism is thought to involve dielectric breakdown of the coating, with the charged droplet acting as one electrode and the grounded metal surface as the other.

This phenomenon is not limited to laboratory experiments; charged droplets can form in natural environments like clouds and waves, and also occur in various industrial processes.

While discharging water before it reaches sensitive surfaces could be a defense, it presents a complex challenge. The study also references Lord Kelvin's Generator and previous work by Steven Dufresne on the electrical properties of falling water.

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