What is static electricity? How does static electricity work? Some harmful effects of static electricity on life.
Static electricity is an imbalance of electrical charges on the surface of a material. The charge will be stored there until it can be transferred elsewhere through an electric current or discharge.
What is static electricity
How does static electricity work
To understand static electricity, we first need to know a bit about the nature of matter. All materials is made up of atoms that consist of three types of smaller particles: negatively charged electrons, positively charged protons, and neutral neutrons. Normally, atoms are charge-neutral because they contain equal amounts of positive charge (protons in the nucleus) and negative charge (electrons in the shell).
structure of an atom (Soucre: socratic.org)
Static electricity requires separation of positive and negative charges. When two materials rub together, electrons are energized to move from one atom to other. This causes an excess of positive charge on one material and an excess of negative charge on the other. When the materials are separated, this charge imbalance is maintained. This situation is called a charge imbalance, or net charge separation.
Mobile electrons will take the first chance that they can go where they’re most needed. In an attempt to restore neutral charge equilibrium, Electrons can jump off a negatively charged object or jump onto a positively charged object.
Conductors like metals and salt water tend to have loosely bound outer electrons, which can easily flow between molecules. On the other hand, insulators like plastics, rubber, and glass have tightly bound electrons that won’t readily jump to other atoms.
The harmful effects of static electricity
+ Causing dust
Static electricity exists on the surface of the object, and they will create an electrostatic magnetic field. It attracts objects to the surface of the electrostatic carrier. It seriously affects the industries producing electronic components, assembling machinery, producing food, pharmaceuticals, etc., which require a clean, dust-free surface.
An application of static electricity (Soucre: mutosi.com)
+ Easily flammable
Similar to lightning, static electricity will generate sparks if it encounters flammable objects such as gasoline, oil, gas, etc. It will cause fire and explosion.
+ Shock
In the manufacturing industry of fabric, plastic, paper, etc., static electricity often causes shock when people touch it and makes it unsafe to work.
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>>> Watch interesting videos about static electricity