Characterization of chargeability of biological particulates by triboelectrification

Triboelectric chargeability of pecan pollen and lycopodium, using commercial Teflon and nylon chargers, has been investigated as reported in this paper. The charge-to-mass ratio of lycopodium, measured at different powder feed-rates, i.e., 50-500 mg/s, indicated that both Teflon and nylon chargers increased particle charge by approximately 11-fold over background with Teflon charging particles positively with (+11.06 mC/kg) and nylon negatively with (-11.52 mC/kg). Pecan pollen charge increased by approximately 11-times for Teflon, charging positively (+7.59 mC/kg), and 5-times for nylon charging negatively (-3.72 mC/kg). Pollen charging was not affected by carrier-air humidity in the range of 15.1%-47.6% RH at 22.5°C. Pollen chargeability by Teflon, measured as a function of the duration of air flow over the charger surface, indicated that triboelectric charging was not degraded even by 3.5 hours continuous flow of humid air (44.2% RH at 19.2°C). Results indicate that tribocharging is a feasible method of imparting charge to pollen in electrostatic pollination technology currently under development in the laboratory