Breakup Behavior of Liquid Metal Jet into Stationary Water with Electric Atmosphere Control: Simulation Study of Metal Particle Production Process

Liquid gallium jet was injected from glass capillary into stationary water layer and the breakup behavior was observed in detail, as a simulation study of the metal-particle production process. Atmosphere, oxidative or de-oxidative, was controlled by applying DC voltage between jet and surrounding water. In de-oxidative atmosphere, the jet broke up almost similar manner to the water jet into air. However, in oxidative atmosphere, the jet showed unusual breakup manner and the oxide deposited inside the nozzle in some cases. Based on the results, the mechanisms of several thwart problems, which occurred in the particle production process of melt jet breakup, were discussed. The measures against the problems were also suggested in this paper.