Once when he was in Japan, he met with a Professor Asakawa who “had done some very interesting work with evaporation of water,” says Hoenig, pioneering the use of electrostatics for drying about 30 years ago. Because relations between corporations and universities don’t exist in Japan, Asakawa’s work was never implemented.
The Asakawa system is illustrated in Figure 1. Power applied to the mesh screen creates ions that charge the water molecules in the air and push them away from the liquid surface. Drops of water at the surface can also be charged, releasing them up and away into the air.