Building water bridges in air

A liquid bridge forms when applying a high voltage between two glass beakers full of water. Surprisingly, the floating water bridge defies gravity even when the beakers are separated at distances of around 2cm! Although such a phenomenon has already received much attention, both in the literature and in youtube, no scientific explanation have been given so far. Our aim is to find a mechanism for such an amazing phenomenon in the framework of classical electrohydrodynamic theory and to find potential applications.

Figure 1: Example of a water bridge of a few cm in length which defies gravity. See also the YouTube video.

Info: Alvaro Marin

Researchers: Alvaro Marin, Detlef Lohse.
Embedding: JMBC, IMPACT
Sponsors: IMPACT