were both turned on so that sodium alginate liquid droplets 20 were drawn from the tip 27 of the needle 22 and upon entering the calcium chloride solution in the petri dish 24 calcium alginate gel droplets were formed and were collected therein the resultant calcium alginate gel droplets were found to be perfectly smooth and spherical and with a mean diameter of 300 u00b1 50 sd u03bcm the syringe needle 22 used in this example was of the same diameter as was previously used in an air jet syringe wherein a rapidly flowing air stream was used to remove sodium alginate liquid droplets from the tip 27 of the needle 22 using the air jet syringe the smallest diameter calcium alginate gel droplets attainable had a diameter of 700 u03bcm the electrostatic procedure described in this example therefore was able to decrease the gel droplet diameter to approximately half this value this example illustrates the formation of small diameter gel droplets using an alternative form of droplet generation the procedure of example 1 was repeated except that the apparatus of fig2 was utilized i e the negative polarity wire 30 was attached to the needle 22 and the positive polarity wire 28 is attached to the metal ring device 32 which is spaced downwardly from the tip of the needle 22 the centre of the metal ring 32 was positioned 7 mm downwardly from the tip 27 of the needle 22 and an uncharged petri dish 24 was positioned about 5 cm downwardly from the ring assembly the calcium alginate gel droplets produced by this procedure and collected in the petri dish were observed to be perfectly smooth and spherical and to have a mean diameter of.