Detection and Measurement of Charge in Water Vapor

Abstract:

Abstract: Positive charge is found in newly formed water vapor. Two detection and two measurement experiments are presented. The detection experiments are simple; their purpose is only to show the existence of charge in water vapor. The first of these experiments places one exposed end of an insulated wire in the vapor space of a flask, which holds boiling water. The other end of this wire is connected to the input high of an electrometer. The input low, in all of the presented experiments, is grounded. The second experiment detects charge by capacitive induction. It uses a beaker with gold leaves gilded on its outside surface. When water boils inside the beaker, the vapor charge is detected by the gold layer without contacting the water or vapor.

The two measurement experiments have sensors made of conducting fabric. The fabric is used to cover the opening of a flask, which holds boiling water, to collect the charge in the escaping vapor. These two experiments differ by the number of fabric layers --- four in one and six in the other. The results obtained from these two experiments are essentially the same, within the margin of error, 0.734 & 0.733 nC per gram of vapor. Since the added two layers of the six-layer sensor do not collect more charge than the four-layer sensor, the four-layer sensor must have collected all available charge. The escaping vapor exits into a chamber, which has only a small area opening connecting to the atmosphere. This chamber prevents direct contact between the sensor and the ambient air, which is necessary because air is found to affect the readings from the sensor. Readings taken in the surrounding area in all four experiments show no accumulation of negative charge.

These experiments identify a source for the atmospheric electricity in a laboratory environment other than that has been discussed in the literature. However, they also raise the question about the missing negative charge that would be predicted by charge balance or the Law of Charge Conservation. The question of positive charge in vapor with no corresponding negative charge is a phenomenon that deserves attention and will be addressed in future articles.