Regarding the use of " and thereby"

I am a bit confused regarding the use of " and thereby " in academic English, For example in the following sentence:

Example: The Taylor cone became unstable for a period of time, and thereby spraying and dripping of the solution occurred.

I checked well-known dictionaries such as Longman and Cambridge, when " thereby" is used, it is commonly followed by a "gerund". Thus, I want to know whether the structure I have used in my example above is correct or not since it is " …, and thereby X occurred."