Study on high-voltage conductivity provided solely by field-enhanced dissociation in liquid dielectrics

The study investigates the process of the electrical current passage in a system with non-uniform electric field under assured absence of injection. The cell has a special design, with the region of the strong electric field located far from metal electrode surfaces and the non-linearity of the current-voltage characteristics ensured solely by the field-enhanced dissociation. The characteristics were measured experimentally and studied numerically for dielectric liquids with different values of low-voltage conductivity; the results were compared. The computations were carried out on the basis of the complete set of electrohydrodynamic equations using commercial software package COMSOL Multiphysics.