ELECTRIFICATION AT INTERFACES: FUNDAMENTALS AND APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Contact electrification is a natural phenomenon in which static charge is generated on solid surfaces when the surfaces come into contact and are then separated. Despite having been observed and studied for centuries, the mechanisms that underlie this well-known phenomenon are still incompletely understood. It is important to further our understanding of contact electrification because of the wide range of influences it has over our lives; for example, it can cause different types of annoyances in many daily activities (e.g., the experience of a shock when one touches a doorknob in dry weather), reduce the efficiency of industrial processes, damage electronic equipment, and cause explosions of flammable dust, liquids, and gases. Thus, understanding contact electrification can aid us in fabricating non-charging surfaces, and for other applications (e.g., electrophotography). In this thesis, we focus on the application of contact electrification for harvesting gravity energy and the fundamental mechanism for charging liquids.