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Following our post on how to make sure that your ESD Flooring is working properly, we thought today would be a good opportunity to talk about the difference between conductive and dissipative flooring. Let's first define what "conductive" and "dissipative" is:
- Electrostatic conductive materials have a resistance to ground (RG) of greater than 1 x 103 ohm but less than 1 x 105 ohm. A "Conductive ESD Floor" is defined by IEC 61340-4-1 (the flooring standard) as a floor that measures less than 1 x 106 ohm (RG).
- Electrostatic dissipative materials have a resistance to ground (RG) of greater than 1 x 105 ohm but less than 1 x 1012 ohm.
So now we've clarified that, you're probably dying to know what type of flooring you should be using... So here it goes: If you use ESD flooring for a person/footwear/flooring personnel grounding system, we recommend conductive flooring.
Person/Footwear/Flooring Personnel Grounding System
Want to know why? Easy! EN 61340-5-1 requires ESD flooring to be less than 1 x 109 ohms (RG). The same standard requires a person/footwear/flooring to be less than 3,5 x 10 7 ohms (resistance in series of operator plus footwear plus floor). Remember that floors get dirty which can raise floor resistance. Therefore it is good to start off with a floor that is conductive (less than 1 x 106 ohm). So even if the resistance increases, you're within the required limits of the ESD Standard.
Make sure you check our Floor Mat Selection Chart.
"For standing operations, personnel can be grounded via a wrist strap system or by a flooring-footwear system". [EN 61340-5-1 clause 5.3.2 Personnel grounding] "When the use of a wrist strap system is impractical, the [ESD] floor and [ESD] footwear shall be the primary means of ESD control." [EN 61340-5-1 clause 5.5 EPA working practices]