https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2004-00047-9
Charging of aerosol particles in the near free–molecule regime
Department of Physical Sciences, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 64, 00014 Helsinki, Finland
Corresponding author: a alex.lushnikov@helsinki.fi
Received:
4
November
2003
Revised:
29
December
2003
Published online:
15
April
2004
The charging of small neutral and charged particles
suspended in weakly ionized plasma
is investigated under the assumption that the Coulomb + image forces give rise to the ion transport in the carrier
plasma and define the rate of charging processes. Our approach is based on a BGK version of the kinetic equation [CITE] describing the ion transport in the presence of force fields created by the particle charge and the
image force. A special type of the perturbation theory (with respect to the reciprocal Knudsen number) is used for
calculating the rate of ion deposition onto neutral and charged particles. As the starting approximation, the
free–molecule ion distribution with a floating ion flux is used for evaluating the collision term in the Boltzmann
equation. The value of the ion flux as a function of the particle size is then fixed self–consistently from the
solution of the Boltzmann equation with the approximated collision term. The expression for the ion flux J(a) to the
spherical particle of radius a is derived in the form , where Jfm is the free–molecule flux
(no carrier plasma) and
is a correction factor taking into account the ion–molecular collisions. The latter
is shown to never exceed unity and to depend weakly on the particle–ion interaction.
PACS: 36.40.Wa – Charged clusters / 82.30.Fi – Ion-molecule, ion-ion, and charge-transfer reactions / 92.60.Mt – Particles and aerosols
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2004