Comparison of charged nanoparticle concentrations near busy roads and overhead high-voltage power lines

Challenges in coupling atmospheric electricity with biological systems

“…These electro-active ions have a tendency to attach to aerosols and originate from both natural (cosmic rays, radioactivity, splashing water, dust storms) and anthropogenic sources (high voltage infrastructure and exhaust fumes from traffic). For instance, a substantial number of corona ions are produced by high-voltage power lines when the voltage is high enough to cause corona breakdown around the cable (Matthews et al 2012;Jayaratne et al 2015). If there is a predominance of one polarity of ion, such as near DC power lines and some AC power lines, this can lead to the enhancement of aerosol charge.…”

“…Various sources of anthropogenic pollution have been identified, ranging from smoke to power lines, which vary in their degree in which they affect the local electric landscape. For instance, smoke and aerosols are known to affect atmospheric electricity (Sheftel and Chernyshev 1994;Kamra and Deshpande 1995;Maricq 2006), and although the number of particles from traffic decays quickly (~10 m) (Lee et al 2012), they can exceed particle numbers near power lines (Maricq 2006;Jayaratne et al 2015). More pervasive are the effect of electrical wires and power lines.…”

The relationship between aerosol concentration and atmospheric potential gradient in urban environments

“…The global PG can be affected by climate, as thunderstorm activity increases, or by space weather (Rycroft et al 2012;Silva and Lopes 2017). Locally the atmospheric PG can be affected by the production of ions, such as from traffic (Jayaratne et al 2015) or high voltage transmission lines (Matthews et al 2010;; or it can be affected by charging in clouds, thunderstorms, dust and other meteorological processes (Yaniv et al 2016). Measurement of atmospheric PG is becoming more commonplace to provide insight into meteorological and space phenomena (Nicoll et al 2019).…”

Urban and rural measurements of atmospheric potential gradient

“…Near a lake in Portugal, PG measurements were used to elucidate space charge caused by breaking water, as well as the convective effect of the so-called 'lake breeze' which acted to remove aerosol and transport freshly created ions over the measurement sites [25]. Traffic can produce highly charged particles due to combustion processes in the engine [16,26].…”