During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, social distancing and the wearing of protective face masks became...

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During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, social distancing and the wearing of protective face masks became a way of life. Normal cloth masks provide protection against the spread of the disease by reducing the transmission of water droplets that contain the virus. However, researchers have developed "smartmasks" that use electric fields to destabilize the coronavirus particles, and while still in the early stages of development, they have shown promise in damaging structures the virus needs to infect host cells. The electroceutical fabric of which the mask is composed consists of a dot matrix of silver and zinc nano particles that acts like an array of electric dipoles when exposed to moisture (see the photo and figures below). Consider just one pair of silver and zinc nanoparticles extracted from the mask. Treat each nanoparticle as an equal and opposite point charge. If the value of the electric field midway between them (point P in the figure) is 120 N/C, what is the magnitude of the charge on each nanoparticle? Take the distance r to be 2.0 mm. Jason Fruits/ Indiana University Research Communications Silver/ silver oxide Zinc zinc/oxide During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, social distancing and the wearing of protective face masks became a way of life. Normal cloth masks provide protection against the spread of the disease by reducing the transmission of water droplets that contain the virus. However, researchers have developed "smartmasks" that use electric fields to destabilize the coronavirus particles, and while still in the early stages of development, they have shown promise in damaging structures the virus needs to infect host cells. The electroceutical fabric of which the mask is composed consists of a dot matrix of silver and zinc nano particles that acts like an array of electric dipoles when exposed to moisture (see the photo and figures below). Consider just one pair of silver and zinc nanoparticles extracted from the mask. Treat each nanoparticle as an equal and opposite point charge. If the value of the electric field midway between them (point P in the figure) is 120 N/C, what is the magnitude of the charge on each nanoparticle? Take the distance r to be 2.0 mm. Jason Fruits/ Indiana University Research Communications Silver/ silver oxide Zinc zinc/oxide