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How ice becomes a charged particle?
As has been discussed in previous sections, sulfate SO4-2 is the principle charge carried in an ice particle and is formed from the dissociation of sulfuric acid formed in the atmosphere by the exothermic reaction of SO3 and H2O.
These sulfate particles are coated with super cooled water inside a thunderstorm or normal cloud. This process electrically isolates the charged SO4-2 particle from the surrounding positive ions in the top of the storm until the ice particle or hail is too heavy to be suspended in the cloud and it begins to fall and melt. As this occurs, the negative charge is released from these particles and they reform SO3 and O-2 from the heat created by inter-cloud lightning.
These two process create the two charged areas within a cloud and allow more lightning to occur. Shown below are other theories surrounding charge separation and lightning formation.
Polarization mechanism hypothesis
The mechanism by which charge separation happens is still the subject of research, but one hypothesis is the "polarization mechanism", which has two components:
1. Falling droplets of ice and rain become electrically polarized as they fall through the atmosphere's natural electric field.
2. Colliding ice particles become charged by electrostatic induction.
Ice and supercooled water are the keys to the process. Violent winds buffet tiny hailstones as they form, causing them to collide. When the hailstones hit ice crystals, some negative ions transfer from one particle to another. The smaller, lighter particles lose negative ions and become positive; the larger, more massive particles gain negative ions and become negative.
Electrostatic induction hypothesis
Another hypothesis is that opposite charges are driven apart by the above mechanism and energy is stored in the electric field between them. Cloud electrification appears to require strong updrafts which carry water droplets upward, supercooling them to between -10 and -20 °C. These collide with ice crystals to form a soft ice-water mixture called graupel. The collisions result in a slight positive charge being transferred to ice crystals, and a slight negative charge to the graupel. Updrafts drive lighter ice crystals upwards, causing the cloud top to accumulate increasing positive charge. The heavier negatively charged graupel falls towards the middle and lower portions of the cloud, building up an increasing negative charge. Charge separation and accumulation continue until the electrical potential becomes sufficient to initiate lightning discharges, which occurs when the gathering of positive and negative charges forms a sufficiently strong electric field.
There are several additional hypotheses for the origin of charge separation.
Extracted from Wikipedia.org
