Virtual capillary charges

Based on the hypothesis that stable, accessible near-surface charge would be a predictor of long-term antimicrobial effectiveness, zeta potential measurements were a priority. As noted above, a capillary method was developed for this purpose [108]. However, coating the inside of 100 pm capillaries is tedious and subsequent characterization of the coating surface virtually impossible. 

The more or less uniformly sized droplets enter a heated transfer capillary in which the solvent molecules are being further evaporated. As a consequence, the sixrface charge density increases until the droplet size reaches the Rayleigh limit at which the surface tension cannot compensate for the Coulombic repulsion associated with the surface charge. At this point, the droplet explodes ( Coulombic explosion. Fig. 10) and smaller size droplets are formed. This process can continue until virtually no solvent molecules are present, but only... 

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