Antistatic / ESD Flooring

Anti-Static and ESD FlooringAnti-static industrial floors inhibit the generation of electrostatic discharge or ESD, which is that the pulse of electricity that happens when a charged person or surface comes into contact with another object. The discharge could also be visible as a spark or tiny blue bolt of electricity, although the bulk of electricity isn’t usually apparent.

We commonly ask ESD as ‘getting a shock’ off an object or person, and in most instances, the static discharge is harmless, albeit it hurts slightly when it occurs. In certain environments, however, electrostatic discharge is often highly dangerous and potentially even catastrophic. In those cases, installing anti-static flooring is an important step in creating a secure environment for workers and visitors.

How Does Anti-Static Flooring Help?

Anti-static floors help by taking the electricity that builds up naturally in any environment and moving it through the ground to ground. By grounding the charge, anti-static flooring prevents the ESD from build-up and discharging into the environment, where it might be destructive to goods or dangerous to people.

Almost any movement within an environment will contribute to the electricity present, whether it’s the familiar walking across a carpet in an office, the everyday movement of vehicles or heavy equipment over a warehouse floor, or the repetitive movement of parts of an automatic machine during a factory. That majority of electrostatic discharges are below 3,500 volts and undetectable to people, so we’re not even conscious of most of the doubtless dangerous ESD happening all around us.