That paper read to me like a theoretical one. Is there any commercially viable application of the idea? Ionizing large volumes of air for any practical application of gathering water strikes me as both hazardous and uneconomical.

edit to add: also, the research doesn't appear to be mutually exclusive? The VA Tech folks were looking at how to prevent clumping on the wire mesh used to gather water, while the study here was increasing the volume gathered on the mesh. It seems natural that you could combine both ideas. That is, a grounded harp mesh which gathers more fog due to ionization, and doesn't clog due to the harp design from VA Tech.