8th Liquid Matter Conference September 6-10, 2011 Wien, Austria ...

P9.72Tue 611:23-14:00Electrically driven liquid bridges - a novelnon-equilibrium laboratory for polar liquidsAdam D. Wexler, 1 Elmar C. Fuchs, 1 and Jakob Woisetschlager 21 Wetsus-Center for Sustainable Water Technology, P. O. Box 1113, 8900 CC, Leeuwarden,Netherlands2 Technische Universität Graz - Institut für Thermische Turbomaschinen und Maschinendynamik,Graz, AustriaThe application of high voltage to polar dielectric liquids results in the formation of a selfsupportinghorizontal liquid bridge. These bridges have a number of unique characteristics suchas optical density fluctuations, infrared emission, bi-directional mass transport, and a concentricmorphology. The stability of these bridges is also dependent on gravity. The most studied ofthe liquid bridges, the floating water bridge, has revealed a number of anomalous properties hintingat effects on many length scales. Ultrafast IR absorption measurements revealed that the OHstretch relaxation time is slower in the bridge compared to bulk. Conversely, the same experimentsdemonstrated that the absorbed laser energy was redistributed throughout the network more slowlythan in the free liquid. Furthermore, the IR emissions of the bridge are not purely black-bodyin origin suggesting significant changes in the energetic landscape within liquid bridges. Opticalmeasurement techniques such as Schlieren, FLIR, and Laser Vibrometer measurements reveal astrong correlation between the flow of power and the observed phenomena. Imposing an electricfield thus reduces the degrees of freedom for polar liquid molecules. Liquid bridges are a stable,non-equilibrium system whereby the observation of mesoscopic forces and a host of unusualhydrodynamic characteristics can be made.72