A new discovery reveals a little-known way in which water can damage protected surfaces. Droplets that acquire electric charge while sliding over certain surfaces can generate electric fields strong enough to cause insulating coatings to break and trigger corrosion of the metal beneath.
In a new study, published last month in Nature, researchers demonstrated that water droplets can spontaneously acquire electric charge while sliding over a surface. When they reach a metal surface protected by an insulating coating, the potential difference can generate an electric field sufficiently intense to degrade the coating.
