How insulating particles increase the conductivity of a suspension.

Nonconducting particles suspended in a liquid usually decreases the bulk conductivity since they form obstacles to the ions' migration. However, for sufficiently high dc electric fields, these particles rotate spontaneously (Quincke rotation) and facilitate the ions migration: the effective conductivity of the suspension is thus increased. We present a theoretical analysis and show experimental results which demonstrate that the apparent conductivity of the whole suspension can be higher than that of the suspending liquid.