Charge separation and isolation in strong water droplet impacts.

Charge separation in condensed matter after strong impacts is a general and intriguing phenomenon in nature, which is often identified and described but not necessarily well understood in terms of a quantitative mechanistic picture. Here we show that charge separation naturally occurs if water droplets/clusters or ice particles with embedded charge carriers, e.g.

Sodium salts in E-ring ice grains from an ocean below the surface of Enceladus.

Saturn's moon Enceladus emits plumes of water vapour and ice particles from fractures near its south pole, suggesting the possibility of a subsurface ocean. These plume particles are the dominant source of Saturn's E ring. A previous in situ analysis of these particles concluded that the minor organic or siliceous components, identified in many ice grains, could be evidence for interaction between Enceladus' rocky core and liquid water.

Atmospheric pressure free liquid infrared MALDI mass spectrometry: toward a combined ESI/ MALDI-liquid chromatography interface.

A new atmospheric pressure (AP)-MALDI-type interface has been developed based on a free liquid (FL) microbeam/microdroplets and a mid-infrared optical parametric oscillator (mid-IR OPO). The device is integrated into a standard on-line nanoESI interface. The generation of molecular ions in the gas phase is believed to be the result of a fast (explosive) laser-induced evaporative dispersion(not desorption) of the microbeam into statistically charged nanodroplets.