ELECTROSTATICS NEWSLETTER

July/August 2001 No.157

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Report on ESA2001 - The 29^th Annual Conference of the Electrostatics Society of America, June 27-30, 2001 - Kellogg Conference Center, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI

ESA tradition assigns the task of reporting on the annual conference to the ESA President, and this year will be no exception. This year’s meeting brought us the ideal mix of new and old faces as well as talks that spanned the range from the traditional to the esoteric. One change from previous meetings was the Thursday to Saturday venue for the conference. This time frame was dictated solely by the availability of the Kellogg Conference facility and not by any desire to experiment with different days of the week. The general consensus of those polled was that a Monday to Wednesday schedule is preferred for future meetings, with a Wednesday to Friday schedule the second choice. Of course, this conclusion was met after polling only a very limited sample of participants, so your opinion is welcome (mnh@bu.edu).

The conference was called to order on Wednesday morning. After the usual greetings and introductions, the meeting began with a keynote address that was to have been delivered by our own renowned electrostatics expert Joseph Crowley. Unfortunately, Joe became ill with a very serious case of the flu just before the meeting (he is OK now) and regretfully could not attend. His invited talk, first delivered at the September 2000 joint ESA/IEJ meeting in Kyoto, was entitled “An Electrostatics Quick Start”. In his absence, the talk was given instead by your own “I’ll volunteer for anything” president who received Joe’s slides by Fedex the evening before. Hopefully, it conveyed the same impact as did Joe’s original rendition in Kyoto, but we certainly missed having Joe in person.

The keynote was followed by a session on electrostatic charging and particles. Newcomer Fred Gross from Florida State U gave a fascinating talk on his work for NASA concerning the electrostatic properties of Martian dust. We’re very glad that Fred could join us this year, and we hope to see him again. Steve Trigwell from U of Arkansas, Larry Levit from Ion Systems, and Matti Murtoma from U of Turku (Finland) all provided us with insights into the tribocharging of powders. Alexandru Biris from U of Arkansas discussed an orange-peel anomaly observed during powder coating, while Sheryl Barringer, a returnee from Ohio State U, treated us to yet another discussion of the use of electrostatics in the food processing industry. We hope to learn still more about her work at next year’s meeting, particularly as it relates to the coating of snack foods. (Fortunately for those present, lunch followed immediately after Dr. Barringer’s captivating but hunger-inducing talk.)

An afternoon session on instrumentation and measurement included numerous interesting papers. Mihai Antoniu, a returning visitor from U of Isai (Rumania), spoke about new developments in field mill technology. Joe Bernier from Intersil gave a great talk on a new ESD-induced device failure mode involving chip-level induction and sparkover, while Ming Lee from United Microelectronics discussed correlations between the human body and machine models used to predict the outcome of wafer-level and packaging ESD tests. Howard Tang had a paper on ESD design and transmission line pulse test measurements. Al Seaver, former ESA President and new 3M retiree, dazzled us all with the best Power Point presentation of the day as he suggested a very simple method for justifying the human body capacitance that is routinely included in the ESD human body model. His talk “hammered” home some well known electrostatics concepts.

On Friday, the second day of the conference, newcomer John Pelesko from Georgia Tech gave a superb talk on the analysis of electrostatic fields in micro-electromechanical devices (MEMS). We look forward to John’s return in subsequent years to update us on his progress. Returnee-from-last-year John Gagliardi from Rutgers delved in the biological realm with his talk on microscale electrostatics in cytokinesis of cells. This area represents one in which we’d like to see even more papers, so perhaps John can help us recruit other speakers when he (hopefully) returns again next year. Hisashi Shio from Japan discussed the effects of plastic deformation on the triboelectrification of semiconductors. Jeremy Ahern from Brunel U (UK) talked about a curious interfacial water effect that he has discovered while pursuing his doctoral studies on the electrostatics of water boules, and ESA newcomer (and hopeful returnee) Heiko Jacobs, a post-doc at Harvard, told us about cutting edge work in nanotechnology involving the fabrication of nano-hole patterns for use in data storage or (possible future) charge-based printing, while ESA regular Bala Balachandran from Brunel U (UK) gave an intriguing talk on the electrostatic control of candle (and other hydrocarbon) flames. Long time ESA attendee and ESA archivist Anne Benninghoff from the U of Michigan delighted us with a talk on the possible relationship between cataracts, sparks, and lightning. We hope to have her return as a speaker very soon. ESA veteran and founding member Bob Gundlach, now with Torrey-Pines research center, talked about a new low-cost corona charging system. A talk by ESA President Mark Horenstein on the electrostatics of the leaf electrometer generated much discussion that is still going on even at the time of writing of this president’s message. Look for more discussions in future issues of the Newsletter. It was great to see so much discussion in the grand tradition of the Friendly Society.

Friday evening brought the traditional ESA banquet. Yours truly attempted to revive the practice of telling banquet jokes. This practice had been abandoned in recent years by Al Seaver on the recommendation of his wife Toni. In my case, my wife has heard all my jokes but was not in attendance, so it gave me license to proceed. I hope my attempts at humor were well received, or at least helped to pass the time. The highlight of the evening, of course, was the banquet talk by our own renowned Glenn Schmieg. His talk on cyclones, tornados, and wind spouts was one of his best yet. An absolutely fascinating talk from a gifted speaker and educator.

On the third day of the session, attendance was still very high (about 80% of what it had been on Thursday and Friday) -- a unexpected surprise considering that it was Saturday. Dr. Chuck Noll from ITW gave a very insightful talk on the influence of ground shields in corona charging applications. His work was particularly interesting in that it involved work done by physics undergraduates from Bloomsburg University, his alma mater. Thao Pham from the U. of Minnesota gave a talk about some interesting effects observed during the decay of charge from insulating surfaces. Peter Gefter from Ion Systems talked about a very innovative new technology for static neutralization involving virtual ac ionization, followed by Pellumb Berberi from the U of Tirana (Albania) who discussed electrostatic properties of textiles. Rajesh Sharma from the U. of Arkansas talked about the plasma treatment of polymers.

We were extremely pleased that Emery Miller, founding member and long-time veteran, was able to attend the ESA conference this year after a long hiatus. Emery’s perpetual willingness to engage in discussions about electrostatics and his every-ready questions for speakers reminds us why the ESA was founded. I truly believe that the ESA could not be the society it is today were it not for Emery’s dedicated service over the years, and I am personally delighted and honored that he was able to attend the annual conference once again.

Special thanks are due to two individuals who made our conference possible. Many of you are simply not aware of the endless hours put in by local arrangements chair Marty Kashef of Delsys and program chair Mark Zaretsky of Kodak. It was a pleasure to work with two such dedicated individuals in the planning and execution of the conference. I’d like to extend my sincere gratitude to them. Two items of note: Marty did a fantastic job of being local arrangements chair in East Lansing even though he lives in New Jersey (I don’t know how he did it). Also, Mark Zaretsky must be glutton for punishment: He already has volunteered to be Program Chair for next year! My hat is off to you, Mark Z. I know you’ll do a great job again.

Additional special thanks to Barbara and Joe Crowley of Electrostatic Applications and Laplacian Press for their unyielding willingness to produce the ESA conference proceedings for yet another year. Our professional-quality proceedings would not be possible without their dedicated efforts and long hours.

I hope to see you all next year at ESA 2002 at Northwestern University, June 26-28, 2002. This meeting will be held jointly with the Institute of Electrostatics Japan (IEJ), so it should be an interesting conference

For the Friendly Society,

Mark Horenstein

ESA President

ELECTION RESULTS FROM THE JUNE 2001 ESA MEETING

It’s official -- Voted in by acclimation for a two-year term (July 2001 - June 2003)

President: Mark Horenstein

Vice President: S. Edward Law

Council: Mark Zaretsky, Humphrey Wong, Steven Cooper

Please join the ESA membership in thanking these individuals for their efforts on behalf of the society.

WATCH OUT FOR THAT DOORKNOB! (It may be Double Trouble)

Once again the recent ESA Meeting met its goal of stimulating friendly interchange and discussion on new applications as well as issues related to common but sometimes misunderstood phenomena such as Mark's excellent summary of the operation of the Gold Leaf Electroscope. (Also perhaps earning a tie with Al Seaver for the most action packed PowerPoint presentation.) Glenn rose to the challenge once again, amazing us with his fascinating demonstrations involving fire, smoke and water showing some fundamental principles from nature. Humphrey (AD) Wong added to the mix by bringing along some old and new electrostatics demonstrations powered by Lance's "super" generator. As my wife Judy describes the annual ESA meeting, it really is a gathering of “wizards".

Several speakers alluded to the classic shocking experience of walking across a carpet and "discharging" to a doorknob or similar grounded object. Emery Miller reminded us that all is not necessarily as it seems when he pointed out that Benjamin Franklin was not so much charged by his kite but rather discharging to it.

This has reminded me of this common event we all experience in winter in our Northern climates, but rarely consider in the detail it deserves.

Lets consider the doorknob experiment a little more carefully. As you walk across a carpet with insulating soles on your shoes, the bottom of the shoes will become charged This induces polarization charge on your conducting (but neutral) body and an equivalent free charge is bound to the shoe. As you touch the doorknob the spark that results does not discharge you but in fact charges you with a net charge equal and opposite to the value of the charge on your soles. If this charge is removed (for example by stepping on a moist grounded carpet) you may be surprised to find you will get another shock, just as bad as before, the next time you touch the doorknob! This time you will in fact be "discharged". If no moist carpet happens to be around, the athletically inclined can reduce the intensity of the second shock by kicking off one shoe and touching the doorknob while hopping on one foot.

An interesting alternative to this experiment can be carried out by well insulated males. Here, after becoming charged after the first touch, if the experimenter "passes water" (assuming a dry bathroom floor), the experimenter will in fact discharge and will also, another shock while engaging the flush. Given enough water capacity, this is could continue indefinitely giving rise to a new phenomenon known as the personal electrophorous effect:>)

Over to you Glenn!

Peter Castle

ELECTROSTATIC DEHUMIDIFIER

Professor Stuart Hoenig has been working on a system that will reduce the humidity of air passing through a fan from 90% to 30% while using very little power. The US Army is interested in using the system in barracks that are not air conditioned and are going to support the development of a laboratory system. However, they wish to know who will build the units commercially.

Dr. Hoenig invites contact from anyone who might be interested in filling that role. He may be reached at: P.O. Box 210104; University of Arizona; Tucson, AZ 85721 or Tel: 520-887-3815 or Fax: 520-887-9727 or e-mail: hoenigc@azstarnet.com or hoenig@ece.arizona.edu