[HN Gopher] Static electricity depends on materials' contact his...
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       Static electricity depends on materials' contact history
        
       Author : wglb
       Score  : 14 points
       Date   : 2025-02-22 00:02 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (phys.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
        
       | ggm wrote:
       | After 200 contacts they detected persisting tribological
       | electrical series ranking, but then found surface roughness
       | changes too. So.. it's correlation heading to a theory of
       | causation.
        
       | Terr_ wrote:
       | > Among all the parameters they investigated, only one provided
       | any hint at all: they spotted discrete changes in the materials'
       | surface roughness at the nanoscopic scale.
       | 
       | > More concretely, they showed that contacts smoothed the tiniest
       | bumps on a material's surface. How this causes contact
       | electrification the team does not know, but as it is the only
       | change they could detect, it is highly suggestive.
       | 
       | That suggests future experiments require some way to supply
       | samples with where their surfaces (not just their charge) are in
       | a known starting state. I'd say "just grind it down", but
       | whatever you're grinding with also needs to have a standard
       | state.
       | 
       | Perhaps something where a grinding/smoothing material is melted
       | and then re-solidified between uses?
        
         | sandworm101 wrote:
         | >> whatever you're grinding with also needs to have a standard
         | state.
         | 
         | Yes and no. There are techniques for grinding three rough
         | surfaces into three flat surfaces without a flat starter.
        
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