Tag: static electricity

Super Ion Air Knife Set to Eliminate Static in Polystryene Foam Board Extrusion

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment

Perhaps you have seen the blue or pink foam boards used to insulate anything from basement walls to garage doors, to walk-in freezers. The stuff is used everywhere in building trades and for any application that requires a great deal of insulating value from a rather thin piece of material.

One of our customers manufactures these foam boards and was having a good deal of difficulty with static electricity within the process. The static electricity in this process was being generated between the Polystyrene board and the Teflon sheet used to create the smooth finish within the calibrator section of the extruding process.

Specifically, the static field was forming where the Teflon sheet peeled away from the material. Whenever you separate two insulating materials which are in contact with one another, an amount of static will form at this point. In this application, the resulting problem was that the conveyor drives did not have enough power to overcome the friction created by a meter wide foam board providing resistance to the flow of the material through the die. Also, operators received frequent static shocks from the material if they even came close to the side of the process.

In the video, you will see the actual extrusion process with the calibration die which has the white Teflon sheet.  The Super Ion Air Knife was not installed at the time the video was taken, but it gives a good perspective of what the customer has to deal with.


Once the customer installed (2) model 111242 (42” Super Ion Air Knife kits) where the blue foam exits (one for top and one for bottom), the conveyor drives no longer had problems moving the material and the operators were safe to come into close proximity to observe.

Sheets of fiberglass, polypropylene, ABS and other polymers are extruded into sheet form in a similar way. In the past we have solved other similar static issues when the process involves a “carrier” type of material to set the surface of the extruded material and subsequently removed by a peeling action.

Neal Raker
Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com

Winter Static is on the Rise

Published on by Kirk EdwardsLeave a comment

Winter time brings with it many good things; seasons greetings, the happy new year, warm fireplaces and some folks even like snow (I am one of them). Winter can also bring some bad things like difficult driving conditions, shoveling driveways and an increase of production problems caused by static. 

Did you know that moisture has the ability to reduce a static charge from a surface. Moisture in the air during the summer months is typically higher than it is in the winter, and the higher humidity of the summer can keep minor static problems at bay. But as winter brings the colder, drier air more static related problems arise in production facilities.

Static also comes from insulating materials exposed to friction, vibration or separation. Materials like glass, plastic and paper are good insulators and can create big static charges. As we see more plastic materials being used in production environments we also see more opportunities for static to generate. 

A solution is found by using one of EXAIR’s Static Eliminators. All of our static eliminators use the same technology and power supplies to generate static eliminating ions. These ions can be delivered with an air stream from one of our products like a Super Ion Air Knife or Ion Air Cannon. We also provide non air assisted static eliminators in the form of our Ion Bars and Ion Point.

Air Assisted products can remove larger static charges, charges which are farther away, traveling at high-speed or hard to reach due to some interference. The non-air products are for slow speed applications where they are positioned within 2″ of the statically charged surface.

Fundamentally, the EXAIR static eliminators all work the same way. The difference in the products is generally the shape of the air/ion cloud they produce. The size and shape of the problematic area will typically have an effect on which static eliminator is chose for the job.

We have a broad choice of static eliminating products to cover varied applications. If you need any assistance in choosing the best product or have any questions about static and your application, we will be happy to help.

Kirk Edwards
Application Engineer
kirkedwards@exair.com