Formation of an Electrospray

Ion formation in ESI can be regarded as divided into three steps i) creation of an electrically charged spray, ii) dramatic reduction of the droplets size, and finally hi) liberation of fully desolvated ions. To understand the formation of a continuous spray, consider the surface of an ion-containing liquid at the end of an electri- 

In detail, the surface starts forming an oval under the influence of increasing field strength and in turn, a sharper curvature of the oval increases the field strength. When a certain field strength is reached, the equilibrium of surface tension and electrostatic forces becomes independent of the curvature s radius, and mathematically, the radius could become zero. However, in a real system infinite 

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