This book is the most comprehensive treatment yet of the problems faced by the engineer caused by static electricity. Written in as non-technical a manner as possible, given the depth of the material, this book discusses the material from the beginner level to many advanced topics for engineers and designers. It discusses not only the harmful and damaging known effects of static electricity on electrical and electronic equipment, but the possible solutions and applications that can be used to stop it.

This proceedings contains papers presented at the 5th International Conference on Applied Electrostatics held in Shanghai, China on November 2--5,2004. The ICAES 2004 Conference is of wide interest, as is shown by the contributions received from 11 countries and districts throughout the world. About 90 researchers attend the conference and more than 100 papers were submitted for presentation in the proceedings. The paper sessions covered following topics: - fundamentals and physics - applications (precipitation, pollution control, spray, separation, material, Ozone, etc.) - hazards and problems - biology technology - electrets - measuring technology - electromagnetic compatibility and others These papers demonstrated recent research level and developing trends of the entire electrostatic field.

Recently, there has been a surge of activity to elucidate the behavior of highly charged soft matter and Coulomb fluids in general. Such systems are ubiquitous, especially in biological matter where the length scale and the strength of the interaction between highly charged biomolecules are governed by strong electrostatic effects. Several interesting limits have been discovered in the parameter space of highly charged many-particle Coulomb matter where analytical progress is possible and completely novel and unexpected results have been obtained. One of the challenges in highly charged matter is to correctly describe systems with finite coupling strength in the transition regime between weak and strong couplings. After studying the fluctuations of both, several theories have been developed that describe this experimentally highly relevant regime. At the same time, computer simulation algorithms and computing power have advanced to the level where all-ion simulations, including many-body and polarization effects, are possible; the new theories thus can be subjected to numerical confirmation. Another important question is the effect of the structural disorder on electrostatic interactions. It has recently been demonstrated, both theoretically and experimentally, that charge disorder can impose long-range interaction between charged or even uncharged surfaces. These interactions might become very significant in biological processes. Filling a void in the literature, this volume cross-pollinates different theoretical and simulation approaches with new experiments and ties together the low temperature, high coupling constant, and disorder parameters in a unified description of the electrostatic interactions, which largely determine the stability and conformations of most important biological macromolecules. With striking graphical illustrations, the book presents a unified view of the current advances in the field of Coulomb (bio)colloidal systems, building on previous literature that summarized the field over 20 years ago. Leading scientists in the field offer a detailed introduction to different modern methods in statistical physics of Coulomb systems. They detail various approaches to elucidate the behavior of strongly charged soft matter. They also provide experimental and theoretical descriptions of disorder effects in Coulomb systems, which have not been discussed in any other book.

Tom Pratt, a long-time process safety practitioner and lecturer in electrostatic safety, wrote this book to educate industry in the basics of electrostatics. It offers a selected collection of information designed to give readers the tools they need to examine the hazard potential of common industrial processes. Among the topics addressed are separation and accumulation of charge, discharge, minimum ignition energies, discharge energies, electrification in industrial processes, design and operating criteria, measurements, quantification of electrostatic scenarios. A selection of case histories helps illustrate sources of electrostatic ignition of combustibles, and strategies for preventing such incidents.

"Provides detailed, comprehensive descriptions of electrostatic processes as well as their applications in areas such as rheology, atomization and spraying, industrial dust particle precipitation and filtering, biomedical engineering, gas treatments, atmospheric electricity, chemical reactors, and electronic devices. Summarizes electrostatic fundamentals and electrical phenomena in solids and fluids."

Over the past 25 years, the molecular electrostatic potential has become firmly established as an effective guide to molecular interactions. With the recent advances in computational technology, it is currently being applied to a variety of important chemical and biological systems. Its range of applicability has expanded from primarily a focus on sites for electrophilic and nucleophilic attack to now include solvent effects, studies of zeolite, molecular cluster and crystal behavior, and the correlation and prediction of a wide range of macroscopic properties. Moreover, the increasing prominence of density functional theory has raised the molecular electrostatic potential to a new stature on a more fundamental conceptual level. It is rigorously defined in terms of the electron density, and has very interesting topological characteristics since it explicitly reflects opposing contributions from the nuclei and the electrons.This volume opens with a survey chapter by one of the original pioneers of the use of the electrostatic potential in studies of chemical reactivity, Jacopo Tomasi. Though the flow of the succeeding chapters is not stringently defined, the overall trend is that the emphasis changes gradually from methodology to applications. Chapters discussing more theoretical topics are placed near the end. Readers will find the wide variety of topics provided by an international group of authors both convincing and useful.