Corona discharge the electron-liberation is a high-energy photon from an atom within the plasma body relaxing after excitation from an earlier collision. The use of ionized neutral gas as a source of ionization is further diminished in a negative corona by the high-concentration of positive ions clustering around the curved electrode. Under other conditions, the collision of the positive species with the curved electrode can also cause electron liberation. The difference, then, between positive and negative coronas, in the matter of the generation of secondary electron avalanches, is that in a positive corona they are generated by the gas surrounding the plasma
Isoelectric point is expected to be somewhat different than the point of zero charge at the particle surface, but this difference is often ignored in practice for so-called pristine surfaces, i.e., surfaces with no specifically adsorbed positive or negative charges. In this context, specific adsorption is understood as adsorption occurring in a Stern layer or chemisorption. Thus, point of zero charge at the surface is taken as equal to isoelectric point in the absence of specific adsorption on that surface. According to Jolivet, in the absence of positive or negative charges, the surface is best described by the point of zero charge.