Kelvin Water Dropper - atmospheric electricity [EN]

[Music] kelvin water dropper we will conduct an experiment that originally was performed by lord kelvin more than 150 years ago it demonstrates first of all the common occurrence of electric charges in nature in general you can build such a kelvin water dropper or lord kelvin's thunderstorm because those are the most commonly used names for such device by yourself you just need a few things water reservoirs that allows obtaining two water streams in this setup we have a large funnel with y-shaped splitter and short elastic tubes ended with a needle in its most basic configuration it could be a plastic container or even a bottle with two holes something that will play the conducting ring inductor roll here we have small metal rings probably easiest way to make such rings is to use metal cans for example after chopped tomatoes two receiving metal containers that are connected to our rings but what is important they have to be connected to the opposite rings by some conductive material in this case we have two rain gorges used at meteorological sites to collect precipitation they are quite tall and prevent any dipping water from splashing onto the floor you can again use metal cans and connect them to cans above with wires but those on the bottom should be quite tall as the splashing water can ruin the experiment [Music] the last essential thing is some material that can conduct electricity and girls from both reservoir almost connecting them but leaving a gap of no more than one centimeter here for that purpose is used quite thick copper wire we also have here wooden support stand to make the device more mobile you may use for example a pile of books instead additionally we have two flat plates made of teflon which act as insulators separating our metal reservoir theoretically a wooden table should be a good insulator but only when it's dry so additional insulation like here may be helpful if you want to repeat the experiment by yourself remember that many things can go wrong here and for sure you will need several attempts to obtain a satisfactory effect okay let's put some water inside and see what happens [Music] it may take some time to generate a spark but if we can see that our water streams are not falling straight but turn towards the rings then the electrostatic attraction is taking place [Music] if the spark does not appear for a long time we probably need to reduce the gap between the copper wires [Music] here it is so what happens here experiment is a good example of electrostatic induction normally all of these things here should be electrically natural however there is always some slight imbalance in the system when one metal reservoir is slightly charged for example negatively charged then the connected ring above is also negatively charged and begins to attract the positive ions hydronium ions or any positive ions from substances dissolved in water [Music] if the stream of water passing through the rings begins to break in the droplets here this is obligatory to generate electricity through the experiment then the water droplets start to be positively charged and the opposite charge in form of hydroxide ions will escape through the stream to water as well at the top and will come out by the second stream attract by now positively charged ring this is called electrostatic induction charging the body without any direct contact with it as the process continues opposing charges build up on the metal containers if the electric potential difference is high enough a spark appears and discharges the system but not fully as the process continues and charges the tanks causing more sparks it is visible on the falling stream of water when spark appears the stream temporarily stops deflecting toward the ring which attracts ions in the water [Music] it is likely that the charge separation presented in this experiment also occurs in clouds and is to some extent responsible for thunderstorms vertical air currents in the clouds turn the droplets into smaller ones then separation of charges can take place seemingly like in presented here kelvin water dropper atmospheric electricity can be measured and we now know from such measurements that all clouds and precipitation falling from these clouds carry a certain electric charge you

Channel: Digi-Science

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Id: xulpzr5AdC8

Length: 5min 54sec (354 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 30 2022