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Frictional Electrification of Sand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2017

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Journal of Glaciology , Volume 1 , Issue 5 , 1949 , pp. 230
Copyright
Copyright © International Glaciological Society 1949

An article by Mr. E. W. B. Gill in Nature (Vol. 162, No. 4119, 1948, p. 568–69) describes an experiment in which sand was allowed to fall about r m. on to the floor. An electrometer plate was placed about 3 m. away. While the sand was falling there was no effect on the electrometer, but soon afterwards it showed a deflexion which increased for three or four minutes, then decreased the needle coming to rest near its original zero position. The inference drawn by Mr. Gil] after describing the experiment in detail, is that “the sand rubbing on itself must produce positive charges on the smallest particles and negative charges on the larger.” He goes on to say, “When sand is blown about on a big scale, very large charges must be produced. …”

This raises the question as to what happens during the drifting of snow and whether any charge present on the flakes as they come to rest has an influence on wind-packing.Footnote *

References

page note page 230 note * Mr. Robert Moss writes: “Some such mechanism may explain the powerful electric shocks which were sometimes experienced at the Central Ice Cap Station of the Oxford University Arctic Expedition, North East Land, 1935–36 when the aerial lead-in wire inside the tent was touched during periods of drifting snow. The aerial itself was often well above the drifting snow and thus it is difficult to attribute its electrification to direct friction between the snow particles and the aerial itself.”