Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 127 (2016) 641651

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Computers and Electronics in Agriculture

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compag

Original papers

Plausibility of variable coverage high range spraying: Experimental

studies of an externally air-assisted electrostatic nozzle
Manoj Kumar Patel a,b,, Hemant Kumar Sahoo b, Manoj Kumar Nayak b, C. Ghanshyam b
a
b

Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Rafi Marg, New Delhi 110 011, India
CSIR-Central Scientific Instruments Organisation, Chandigarh 160030, India

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 26 November 2015
Received in revised form 11 April 2016
Accepted 16 July 2016

Keywords:
Air-assisted electrostatic nozzle
Aerodynamics
Charge neutralization
Induction charging
External air-assistive device
Variable coverage

a b s t r a c t
A system for spraying liquid pesticides to crops and orchards combines an induction based electrostatic
nozzle and externally air-assisted manually controlled mechanical device. In this paper, an innovative
concept has been executed for variable coverage high range spraying through an external airassistance system, which supplies compressed air to assist the finely divided charged liquid droplets
by farming a virtual covering around the fine mist of liquid spray. External air-assistive device consists
of movable support for air supplies whose variation of cone angle is from parallel spray center line
(0) to maximum spray cone angle (25). This provides a means to transport electrostatically charged fine
mist of liquid droplets to intended target with variable spray coverage angle of target, applicable in high
wind and transient conditions with enhanced performance without degradation of charge-to-mass ratio.
The results of applied induction electrification process were characterized by a charge-to-mass ratio as a
function of applied voltage, target distance, and wind current. It has been shown that the wind current
has an insignificant (p value = 0.021615) and significant (p value = 0.000325) effects on the performance
of the electrostatic nozzle at 99% confidence level with and without external air-assistive mechanical
device respectively. The experimental results are in good agreements with proposed concept.
2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Although, organic measures for crop protection are being preferred, chemical intervention is still the fastest and the most economical way for crop protection (Abhilash and Singh, 2009;
Chambers et al., 2014; Guthman and Brown, 2015). However,
due to lack of awareness and ignorance, pesticides are being used
indiscriminately, leading to side effects on human health and
ecosystem (Gupta, 2004; Isin and Yildirim, 2007; Cronk and
Fuller, 2014; Shivom and Kajal, 2015). Electrostatic method of pesticide application reduces off-target drift, environmental pollution
and human health risks and increases the bio-efficacy and mass
transfer efficiency onto the biological surfaces of crops and orchards with uniform back deposition (Abdel-Salam et al., 1993;
Chen et al., 2008; Cooper, 2011; Yang et al., 2012; Deng et al.,
2013). The spraying systems available in the market are uncontrolled in terms of spraying variability and application control
(Law, 1983; Law and Cooper, 1998; Sumner et al., 2000; Yu et al.,
2007; Mamidi et al., 2012; Patel et al., 2015). Pesticide application
Corresponding author at: CSIR-Central Scientific Instruments Organisation,
Chandigarh 160030, India.
E-mail address: manoj_patel@csio.res.in (M.K. Patel).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2016.07.021
0168-1699/ 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

control, targeted pesticide delivery, variable in canopy coverage

and high range pesticide spraying are the key to improve operation
quality, reduce chemical waste, environmental pollution and lower
operational cost (Xiongkui et al., 2011; Ganmor et al., 2013; Toader
et al., 2015).
The electrostatic sprayers available and marketed so far, are
being used in agriculture, however, the problem associated with
these kind of sprayers are; directionality, variability in canopy coverage, target coverage distance, and incapability of spraying in the
presence of high wind and transient environmental agro-climatic
conditions (Zhao et al., 2008; YaoPei et al., 2009; Ru et al., 2011;
Yuzhou et al., 2011; Zhou et al., 2012; Mamidi et al., 2013; Patel
et al., 2016a). In the existing nozzles, once the cone angle of spraying is fixed as per requirements of spraying during the design of
the nozzle, the spray target coverage i.e. canopy covered by the
spray cannot be altered further, unless the new design comes in
place. According to the requirements, narrowing or broadening of
the spray pattern is not possible during the operation of the nozzle
(Shafaee et al., 2011; Yu et al., 2011). All nozzle tips produce a
range of droplet sizes with low-drift nozzles reducing the number
of small droplets (Sachar and Rich, 1986; Sayinci and Bastaban,
2011; Sasaki et al., 2013). The smaller droplets are more prone to
drift from the target. The electrostatic repulsion among droplets

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is also the cause of spray drift. Presence of high wind is another

cause of spray drift and presently available sprayers have no
arrangement which can be used even in normal wind conditions
(Maski and Durairaj, 2010; Pascuzzi and Cerruto, 2015; Patel
et al., 2015). Electrostatic spraying systems are designed to electrically charge the spray particles so that each spray droplet will be
attracted to the plants (Quanjie et al., 2014; Patel et al., 2016b).
Appropriate droplet size is still important. If small droplets are
moved by air current, even the charged droplets may not come
close enough to the plants to be strongly attracted.
There is a pressing need of an electrostatic spraying system
which can be used for high range orchards spraying such as citrus,
apple, grapes etc. Therefore, there is a need to provide a solution to
the spray drift problem by simple mechanical device without compromising the performance of electrostatic nozzle (Marchant,
1977; Thompson and Ley, 1983; Patel, 2016). It can also be a retrofitted device so as to provide the solution in minimum cost and
least complicated in operation (Patel et al., 2016a). In this paper,
a manually controlled variable coverage high range electrostatic
spraying system has been designed and developed to provide an
assistance to guide the fine droplets with the help of externally
supplied high pressurized air flow. This work relates to electrostatic spraying apparatus having an externally air-assistive
arrangement for the variable target canopy coverage, high range
spraying distance which is applicable in transient and agroclimatic conditions such as in the presence of high wind. The
designed system can be used for crops as well as high range orchards and trees spraying such as citrus, apple, grapes, shelter trees
in urban areas, fast growth forest, defendable forest and shelter
trees on highways with higher mass transfer efficiency. External
air supply improves the aerodynamic conditions in between the
spray exit from the nozzle tip and the actual target to be sprayed.
2. Theoretical considerations
In electrostatic pesticide spraying, the foremost aim is to provide the right and appropriate conditions to spray the pesticides
efficiently and effectively to the intended target (Houbraken
et al., 2015). Once the spray droplet is charged to a significant level
of net electrical charge (0.51.6
106 electronic charge for 50 lm

VMD droplet), the droplet has to traverse the ambient environmental conditions and naturally occurring ionized region (Atkin,
1987). During the flight of charged spray droplets from the dispensing nozzle to the target object, several basic charge interactions may occur to affect both the charge retention and the
structural integrity of the droplets (Dix and Marchant, 1984;
Frost, 1984). Literature shows that there is a naturally occurring
phenomenon such as ionization by cosmic radiation, background
radioactivity and other radiations from electrical and electronic
equipment, producing ion pairs (Law, 1995). There exist naturally
occurring free charge and electric fields in the earths atmosphere.
Law (1978) states that air ion pair concentration is governed by the
relation as shown in equation:

dni
ci  ai n2i
dt

where ci is the charge creation rate in ion pairs per cubic centimeter
per second, ai is the coefficient of recombination, and ni is the number of concentration of both positive and negative ion species.
Therefore, according to Law and Bowen (1987), the charged cloud
will encounter some degree of neutralization by two major actions:
(1) transverse travelling of the charged particulate matter in the
ionized region and (2) the migration of the air ions into the charged
spray cloud by the attraction of oppositely charged particles. Among
these interactions, the first mode of neutralization can be considered negligible because the travel distance is more than several
kilometers.
To keep into account the effects of wind current, harsh environmental conditions on spray drift and naturally occurring neutralization processes, a retrofitting device is designed and developed
to provide external air-assistance to charged droplets travelling
to the intended target. The external air-assistance forms a virtual
path and covering around the charged droplets and guides the
in-flight trajectory of charged particulate matter efficiently in
ambient and harsh environmental conditions.
Considering the Fig. 1(a), the external air-assistive retrofitted
mechanical device placed co-axially with electrostatic nozzle head.
In present design, the external air-assistive unit has six pipes for
supply of the compressed air. The air supply pipes may vary in
number depending upon the precision and application of spraying

Fig. 1. A portion of an air-assisted electrostatic nozzle consisting of external air-assistive mechanical device.

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643

Fig. 2. Variation of spray coverage cone angle by external applied air pressure through mechanical device.

as shown in Fig. 1(c). The external air-assistance provides safety to

the charged droplets from adverse atmospheric condition such as
the presence of high wind. Since atmospheric wind around the
spray will have to interact during the flight of the charged droplets,
an air envelope is formed around liquid droplets rather coming in
direct contact in the absence of air-assistive unit. Therefore, the
effect of atmospheric wind on the path followed by charged liquid
droplets can be reduced.
The spray coverage varies from minimum target coverage Fig. 2
(c) to maximum target coverage Fig. 2(a) along with one view of
middle spray coverage Fig. 2(b).

3. Experimental
The experimental set-up comprises an air-assisted electrostatic
nozzle, externally air-assistive unit, nozzle frame holder, high
voltage power supply (Model No.: HV-Rack-1-250-00287, ULTRAVOLT), rectangular aluminum plate as artificial target, Digital

Multimeter for the measurement of spray current (Model No.

6514, Keithley Make, USA), air compressor (Model No.:
SAN10101, ELGI Equipments Ltd.), pressure-regulating valve
(Model No.: LOE-D-MINI C643, FESTO), air flow meter (Model
No.: PFM711S-C8-C-A-WS-X731) liquid tank, spray patternator,
and liquid collector. An experimental set-up has been shown for
the proposed study in which Fig. 3(b) and (a) explains the set-up
of an electrostatic nozzle with and without air-assistive device
respectively. The primary base body of external air-assistive
mechanical device, comprising of six hollow compressed air supply
pipes which are free to move in angular direction along with the
constraints from minimum to maximum possible spray target coverage, is connected to external air supply. The number of the pipes
depends upon the requirement of the spraying applications, may
be four, six, eight or more. To prove the concept of variable cone
spray coverage, the three stages of variable spraying have been
experimented by putting the different size O-rings around the
air-supply pipes. O-ring provides uniform extension or compression to air supply pipes as shown in Fig. 3(c).

Fig. 3. Experimental set-up of (a) electrostatic nozzle (b) electrostatic nozzle with air-assistive unit (c) air-assistive unit with different size O-rings to vary the cone angle of
spray coverage.

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The existing electrostatic method for measuring charge-to-mass

ratio has been used in the experiments i.e. a specially designed aluminum plate was connected to the earth potential via a digital
multi-meter (Patel et al., 2012). The contact of the charged droplets
onto the aluminum plate and transfer of the charge to the earth
caused an electrical current which was detected by microampere
meter. The charged liquid spray was collected at a specific time
and weighed (Edward Law, 2001; Allah, 2002; Zhu et al., 2008;
Consta, 2010; Bhattacharjee, 2013). Then the spray current was
divided by the mass flow rate to determine the charge-to-mass
ratio (Toljic et al., 2010; Patel et al., 2013). The charge-to-mass
ratio was calculated from the relation:

Charge-to-mass ratio is =Q m mC=kg

where is is the measured spray current (A) and Qm is the collected

mass of the liquid (kg s1). The flow rate of the nozzle was
150 ml/min and the spray current was measured for 2 mins. Furthermore, the experiments were conducted in the laboratory conditions in air atmosphere at ambient conditions (T = 25 2 C,
RH = 53 3%), for liquid feed rate of 150 ml/min. Tap water of finite
conductivity of 0.333 mS/cm (dielectric constant k = 1) and density
of 998 kg/m3 was used for the experiments.

4. Results and discussion

4.1. Charge-to-mass variation with applied voltage & application
target distance
As shown in Fig. 4, there is an initial increase of the charge-tomass ratio up to a critical applied voltage and then starts decreasing or almost constant at a higher applied voltage to a corresponding air supply, electrical and mechanical properties of liquid and
the geometry of the charging electrode. After saturation point,
the inductive charging tends towards conductive charging,
encountered by positive current and therefore, charge-to-mass
ratio decreases. Saturation point usually caused by partial discharge in the charging system. Here, there are two conflicting
requirements; for high charging efficiency, the electrode should
be close enough to the liquid film, but if this distance is too small,
the droplets are more likely to be attracted to the electrode surface
due to Coulomb force. Wetting of the charging electrode should be
avoided since this phenomenon leads to deterioration of the atomizer and charging electrode. Load current indicates the current
drawn by charging electrode. As the conductivity of liquid changes,
the dielectric of air media changes between electrode and liquid
sheet and hence the load current changes.

Fig. 4. Charge-to-mass ratio/load current variation with the applied voltage and target distance (a) plot of charge-to-mass ratio/load current variation with applied voltage at
an applied internal air pressure of 3 bar, flow rate of 150 ml/min & a target distance of 0.2 m (b) plot of variation of charge-to-mass ratio with target distance at fixed applied
voltage of 2.0 kV, applied internal air pressure of 3 bar & liquid flow rate of 150 ml/min (target distance variation from 0.2 m to 3 m).

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645

Fig. 5. Charge-to-mass ratio variation with the change in target distance (a) charge-to-mass variation at the target distance of 3 m and flow rate of 150 ml/min with and
without external applied air pressure of 3 bar (b) charge-to-mass ratio variation with different level of external applied air pressure of 0, 1, 3 and 4 bars at 3 m target distance,
an applied voltage of 2.0 kV & flow rate of 150 ml/min (c) variation of target distance with external applied air pressure while maintaining the same charge-to-mass ratio/
spray current.

The charge-to-mass ratio has been evaluated at different spraying target distance as shown in Fig. 4, which indicates that the
charge-to-mass ratio decreases with the increase in target distance. The closest distance of the target was 0.2 m from the nozzle
tip. It is found that the spraying distance affects the chargeto-mass ratio, consequently the liquid deposition efficiency (Law
and Lane, 1982; Friso and Baldoin, 2015). There are many reasons
for this deterioration of charge-to-mass ratio, hence the performance of electrostatic processes: (1) the smaller droplets are not

able to reach the target since the droplets have lost the momentum
(2) electrostatic forces are trying to levitate the fine droplets in the
environment, will remain until the target is available (3) the
decrease in charge-to-mass ratio is due to the existence of naturally occurring free charge and electric fields in the earths atmosphere. Therefore, charged droplets will encounter some degree
of neutralization by the following two actions: (1) traversing a
region of ionized air; and (2) causing migration of oppositely
charged air ions into the region of charged sprays (Atkin, 1987).

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Fig. 6. Experimental set-up to observe the effects of wind current on charge-to-mass ratio.

Fig. 7. Variation charge-to-mass ratio with the wind current and external applied air pressure (a) charge-to-mass variation with wind current at an applied internal air
pressure of 3 bar, external air pressure of 3 bar and flow rate of 150 ml/min (b) charge-to-mass variation with wind current of 1.5 m/s at an applied internal air pressure of
3 bar, external air pressure of 3 bar and flow rate of 150 ml/min.

Table 1
Paired two-tailed t-test for charge-to-mass ratio between with and without air current to evaluate the influence of air-assisted retrofitted mechanical device.
Situation

p-value

Correlation coef. (R)

R2

Significance (with 99% level of confidence)

Without external air-assisted retrofitted mechanical device

With external air-assisted retrofitted mechanical device

0.000325
0.021615

0.994157
0.994811

0.988349
0.989650

Significant
Non-significant

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Fig. 8. Schematic diagram swath width, target coverage and uniformity of

distribution measurement.

4.2. Charge-to-mass ratio and target distance variation with external

applied air pressure
In the experiments, the concept has been proved in either way;
first, the target distance and external applied air pressure was kept
constant and the change in charge-to-mass ratio was observed
with the change in applied voltage. Considering the Fig. 5(a), the
charge-to-mass ratio has been plotted against applied voltage with
and without external air supply and was found that a significant
charge-to-mass ratio had been maintained at a target distance of

647

3 m from the nozzle tip with air-assistive retrofitted mechanical

device.
Considering the Fig. 5(b), the charge-to-mass ratio has been
plotted against external applied air pressure by keeping the high
voltage constant at 2.0 kV. It was found that charge-to-mass ratio
was increasing with the external applied air pressure, since the
smaller charged droplets levitating in the environment were
guided by the external air supply. Therefore, the smaller droplets
were also reaching to the actual target, which were lost in between
the nozzle tip and deposition target. In other words, the presence
of external air supply acts like an energy source for the droplets
which have lost the momentum due to smaller size, and are more
prone to spray drift.
In Fig. 5(c), the graph of distance covered by the spray against
external applied air pressure by keeping charge-to-mass ratio constant has also been plotted to explain the charge-to-mass ratio variation with the change of target distance. Charge-to-mass ratio (i.e.
0.16 mC/kg) at applied voltage of 2.0 kV and at target distance of
3.0 m without external air supply was observed approximately
same with an external applied air pressure and at the coverage distance of approximately 5 m. Therefore, the distance of target coverage can be increased by approximately 67% with the help of simple
retrofitted mechanical device, keeping the applied voltage same.
4.3. Study of the effects of wind current on spray drift
To analyze the effects of wind current on the performance of the
electrostatic nozzle, the graph of charge-to-mass ratio has been

Fig. 9. Spray coverage distribution with and without applied voltage of 2.0 kV (a) plot of water accumulated in test tubes with internal applied air pressure of 3 bars & no
external air pressure at a flow rate of 150 ml/min & an applied voltage of 0 kV (b) plot of water accumulated in test tubes with internal applied pressure of 3 bars & no external
applied air pressure at a flow rate of 150 ml/min with an applied voltage of 2.0 kV.

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M.K. Patel et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 127 (2016) 641651

plotted against the wind current. The wind current has been generated by using a blower (axial fan) for the laboratory experiments.
To measure the wind current flow, an air flow tracker (Kestrel
4200) has been used as shown in Fig. 6. The direction of wind current was in horizontal and perpendicular to the direction of spray
exit from the nozzle tip.
Considering the Fig. 7(a), the charge-to-mass ratio has been
plotted against applied charging voltage in the absence and presence of environmental wind current to observe the effects on the
performance of electrostatic nozzle. It was observed that in the

presence of wind current, the charge-to-mass ratio was reduced

significantly (p value = 0.000325) as shown in Table 1. The reason
could be the droplets are not able to reach to the actual target
due to wind current. It may also happen that smaller droplets are
easily diverted by wind current from the actual trajectory and
are not able to reach onto the target.
Considering the Fig. 7(b), the charge-to-mass ratio has been
plotted against applied charging voltage in the presence and
absence of wind current to see the effects on the performance of
the electrostatic nozzle. Due to external applied air pressure, there

Fig. 10. Spray uniformity distribution with external applied air pressure (a) plot of water accumulated in test tubes at an applied internal air pressure of 3 bar, external air
pressure of 1 bars & a flow rate of 150 ml/min (b) plot of water accumulated in test tubes at an applied internal air pressure of 3 bar, external air pressure of 2 bars & at a flow
rate of 150 ml/min (c) plot of water accumulated in test tubes at an applied internal air pressure of 3 bar, external air pressure of 3 bars & a flow rate of 150 ml/min.

M.K. Patel et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 127 (2016) 641651

was negligible effect of wind current on the drift of charged droplets and on charge-to-mass ratio. The external air supply provides
a protective surrounding from the harsh environmental conditions
by farming a virtual path around the charged spray droplets.
Therefore, the effect of wind current of 1.5 m/s was insignificant
(p value = 0.021615) in the presence of external applied air pressure of 3 bar.

649

In the experiments, the cumulative liquid volume (CLV) of collected liquid in test tube number C25 has also been plotted. The
experiments were carried out for the duration of 2 min (300 ml)
with the nozzle having flow rate of 150 ml/min, which showed that
there were some experimental losses. It is also observed that in
case of electrostatic spraying, the cumulative volume (CLV) is
slightly lower in comparison to non-electrostatic spraying because
of attraction of charged droplets towards nearby objects.

4.4. Spray distribution and target coverage

In the experiments, three kinds of observations have been
reported. A spray patternator of the dimensions 1000
1200 mm
has been prepared with the equidistant 40 columns (C1, C2,
C3 . . . C40) of width 27.5 mm and each column having a divider of
2.5 mm width as shown in Fig. 3. The spray is vertically directed
and landing onto the equidistant columns and the liquid is collected
into the test tubes connected to the outlet of each columns. The number of columns multiplied by the equidistant width (27.5 + 2.5 mm)
will provide the horizontal coverage of the spray. Double of the tangent of the measured angle is the measure of spray cone angle.
The experiments have been performed with and without the
applied voltage to measure the target coverage, uniformity and
swath width of the spray. The distance (z = 600 mm) between nozzle tip and the stationary platform kept constant as shown in Fig. 8.
The liquid is collected in test tubes and measured volumetrically.
The collected amount in test tubes plotted statistically in both
the cases i.e. non-electrostatic as well as electrostatic spraying.

4.4.1. Variation of swath width with and without applied voltage

Considering the Fig. 9, in case of non-electrostatic spraying, the
sprayed liquid has covered test tubes from C13 to C21 (number of
grooves = 9). Therefore the width of spray coverage y = 272.5 mm
(27.5
9 + 2.5
10 = 272.5) and hence the spray angle was found
to be approximately 25 (a = 2{tan1 (0.227)}). In case of electrostatic spraying, the liquid was collected in 13 test tubes (C11C23)
and therefore, the width of spray coverage x = 392.5 mm
(27.5
13 + 2.5
14 = 392.5). In this case, the calculated spray
angle was found to be approximately 36 (b = 2{tan1 (0.327)}. If
the water collected in the test tubes which is less than 5 ml (C11
and C23) is neglected, then spray angle was around approximately
31 (b0 = 2 {tan1 (0.277)}. Experimental results showed that, there
was a significant increase in spray angle (b > a). Spray swath width
and hence target canopy coverage has been increased with the
applied charging voltage. The reason of increased spray angle is
electrostatic repulsive force among the negatively charged droplets. Assuming the groove C17 is the centermost test tube for liq-

Fig. 11. Spray coverage angle variation with the change in the diameter of external air-assistive device (a) plot of water accumulated in test tubes at applied internal air
pressure of 3 bar, external air pressure of 3 bars along with reduced diameter of external retrofitted mechanical device & a flow rate of 150 ml/min (b) plot of water
accumulated in test tubes at applied internal air pressure of 3 bar, external air pressure of 3 bars along with least diameter of external retrofitted mechanical device & a flow
rate of 150 ml/min.

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M.K. Patel et al. / Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 127 (2016) 641651

uid collection, it is found that grooves equidistant from the centermost groove approximately have almost equal amount of liquid.
The plotted curve has Gaussian trend of spray distribution which
has resulted into a uniform droplets distribution.

nozzle at 99% confidence level with and without external airassistive retrofitted mechanical device respectively.

4.4.2. Variation of spray uniformity distribution with external applied

air pressure at a fixed diameter of retrofitted mechanical device
In the experiment(s), the external applied air pressure was varied to see the effects of external air assistance on spray uniformity
distribution i.e. deposition onto the target surface. There was a
Gaussian distribution of droplets i.e. the water collected in the centermost of the test tube is maximum and decreased in either side.
The increase in the external applied air pressure (1, 2 and 3 bar
respectively) has increased the uniformity distribution.
Referring to Figs. 2 and 10, equalization and distribution of
inner streams of liquid droplets towards outer periphery was
started as the pressure of external air supply was equal or greater
than the internal air pressure supplied to electrostatic nozzle. The
plot of cumulative volume is to show the losses occurred as the
pressure of external air supply increases.

Authors are thankful to the Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi for the financial assistance. We also thank to
Mr. Ashwani Kumar for helping in conducting the experiments. We
sincerely thank to Dr. Abhishek Gupta for help in statistical data
analysis of the experimental findings. Support of CSIR-CSIO staff
and facility provided to pursue this research work is highly
appreciable.

4.4.3. Variation of spray coverage with variation of diameter of

retrofitted mechanical device at a fixed external applied pressure
Considering Fig. 11, the experiment was carried out by charging
the diameter of retrofitted mechanical device, but the pressure of
external air-assistive device was kept constant. The diameter of
externally air-assistive unit is changed by putting O-rings of different diameters around the air supply pipes.
It is observed that the spray coverage angle can be changed by
charging the diameter of retrofitted mechanical device. In case of
reduced diameter of retrofitted device, the sprayed liquid has
covered test tubes from C14 to C20 (number of grooves = 7) and
therefore, the width of spray coverage y = 212.5 mm (27.5
7 +
2.5
8 = 212.5) and hence the spray angle was found to be approximately 20 (h = 2{tan1 (0.177)}. In case of least diameter, the liquid was collected in 5 test tubes (C15C19) and therefore, the width
of spray coverage x = 152.5 mm (27.5
5 + 2.5
6 = 152.5). In this
case, the calculated spray angle was found to be approximately
14 (u = 2{tan1 (0.127)}.

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5. Conclusion
The electrostatic spray could produce uniform and fine droplets
with better droplet adhesion and spread, higher deposition efficiency and bio-efficacy, lower application rate, reduced environmental contamination and less application expenses. The present
device focuses on shielding the fine electrostatic spray droplets
from harsh and transient wind conditions. The design uses concentric movable nozzles/pipes to vary the spray cone angle, the range
as well as coverage of the electrostatic spray. Such variation has
been achieved by simple mechanical means so as to make the
device least complicated in operation.
The present work provides an improved transport of the charged
droplets to intended target with the benefits over the available and
existing market equipment i.e. variable spray coverage with the
adjustment according to the requirement of target canopy,
applicable in the presence of high wind and harsh environmental
conditions, covers a longer target distance of the crops specially
in orchard spraying and increases the application efficiency. The
charge-to-mass ratio is inversely proportional to the distance
between the nozzle tip and the target. The system was more
efficient regarding to droplets deposition when the target was
longitudinal to the spray jet. It has been shown that the wind
current has an insignificant (p value = 0.021615) and significant
(p value = 0.000325) effects on the performance of the electrostatic

Acknowledgements

Appendix A. Supplementary material

Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2016.07.
021.
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