what it is

Static It is the result of an imbalance between negative and positive electrical charges in the object. These charges can accumulate on the surface of the object until they find a way to discharge themselves.

The most common cause of static electricity is a phenomenon known as triboelectricity. When two materials are repeatedly touched and separated, the surface of one material can steal electrons from the surface of the other. Therefore, rubbing your socks on the carpet or running a plastic comb through your hair can create an electrical charge. In fact, negative electrons move from one object to another. When you touch something like a cat or dog, you get an electric shock because the excess electrons are thrown out quickly.

When you rub a balloon against your shirt, the balloon gains an excess amount of electrons, and the negative charge of that electron helps it stick to the wall, making it now more positively charged than the balloon.

The most powerful manifestation of static electricity on Earth is lightning. The collision of raindrops and ice crystals in clouds can cause a large amount of static electricity to accumulate. Lightning discharges can contain up to 5 gigajoules of energy, which is enough to set several trees on fire at once.

By comparison, the amount of static charge that can accumulate in a human is hundreds of billions of times smaller and corresponds to approximately 40 millijoules of energy. This is about as much energy as a typical LED light can use in one second.

Will there be a fire?

Pooria Shamsi, a power electronics engineer at Missouri University of Science and Technology, says: Even this small amount of energy is enough to damage sensitive electronic devices or cause a fire.. According to Şemsi, most fires caused by static electricity start with flammable fuel vapors and gases.

The most common daily situations where fires occur are gas stations,
adds Mark Lambert, director of the West Virginia Fire Training Academy.

Static electricity on a person can be discharged in the form of an electric spark (for example, on a pump handle) that can ignite flammable materials. To prevent gas station fires, Lambert recommends “touch the metal or the car door with your bare hands” before using the pump. This will discharge static electricity in your body and help you avoid a possible fire.

In industrial facilities as well as gas stations, static electricity can ignite fine dust such as fine wood dust, aluminum powder and even wheat flour. Moving dust and other objects indoors can cause static electricity to build up on surfaces, which can then turn into dust and cause it to catch fire.

The average person may not think of aluminum or the bread they eat as flammable materials. However, when both materials are ground into fine powder, they can ignite due to the discharge of static electricity.
– says Puriya Shamsi.

In general, people working with flammable materials, including hydrocarbons and fine dust, should be evacuated before entering such an environment.