Knowing Your ESD Gloves

MTE Offers a large selection of ESD Gloves, including ESD Gloves that are cleanroom ready to meet your specific needs.

Knowing Your ESD Gloves

ESD stands for electrostatic discharge. Under certain circumstances, when two materials with different charges approach each other, a potential transfer occurs.

This common phenomenon, known as electrostatic discharge (ESD), amplitudes can range from almost unmeasurable electronic motion to hundreds of millions of volts.

Anti-static or electrostatic discharge (ESD) gloves protect workers and the environment around them, as they are designed to be used in particle sensitive and low-contaminate environments, such as laboratories, cleanrooms, the biotech industry, and electronic works.

How Do ESD Gloves Work?

Anti-static equipment can reduce the accumulation of static electricity on the equipment or your body.

Anti-static gloves reduce the risk of electrostatic shock by discharging accumulated static electricity. By dissipating the accumulated static electricity, you can reduce the risk of electrostatic shock.

The primary purpose of anti-static gloves is to protect electronic components. Electronic components, such as circuit boards, are easily damaged by electrical discharge. Anti-static gloves should be conductive or static dissipative.

In simple words, they either conduct electricity or dissipate static electricity. Apart from that, these gloves have a mixture of soft conductive materials and synthetic fibers. This construction makes the gloves more conductive and prevents static electricity from accumulating.

Anti-static gloves only reduce the risk of electrostatic discharge; thus, you should keep in mind that using a grounding wrist strap is vital to ensure the lowest possibility of electrostatic discharge.

Choosing ESD Gloves

Why should you use anti-static gloves? When two surfaces touch and separate, the charges will be unbalanced. If one of the surfaces has high electrical resistance, electrical charges will accumulate in the object.

The imbalance of charges inside or on the surface of the material can cause static electricity. This charge remains in the material until it can be removed by current or discharge. Most of us are familiar with the effects of static electricity because when the excess charge is neutralized, we can feel, hear, and even see sparks.

The neutralization of the charge causes the familiar phenomenon of a static shock or an electrostatic discharge. A quick neutralization of the imbalance results in sudden electronic discharge.

ESD Gloves Suitability

ESD gloves can be worn for a wide range of situations such as:

• Building a high-end PC
• Working with electronic products
• Smartphone repair or upgrades
• Working with jewelry
• Precision Packaging
• Working in a PCB Factory
• Mechanical Workshop
• Chemical Industry

Overall, ESD gloves are recommended if you handle electronics often, for higher productivity and lower risk in your day-to-day tasks. (Ansell)

Why Use ESD Gloves?

Anti-Static ESD Gloves are essential for workers who handle sensitive electronic equipment, such as circuit boards, microchips, computer parts, and medical devices. Static electricity can damage and cause these products to malfunction, degrade, or fail, resulting in costly losses, increased warranty claims and safety hazards. ESD gloves can prevent static build-up and discharge, ensuring the quality and performance of the products. ESD gloves are also beneficial for workers who work in industries where static electricity can pose a risk to electronics or can ignite flammable or explosive materials, causing fires or explosions that can harm workers and damage property.

What Problems do Anti-Static ESD Gloves Solve?

ESD gloves solve the following problems:

• Electrostatic attraction: Electrostatic attraction is the phenomenon of where objects with electric charges attracting each other. Electrostatic attraction can cause dust, dirt, and other particles to stick to the surface, contaminating the products or interfering with the work process. This is a major problem with glass and plastics such as headlights, screens in the automotive industry.  ESD gloves can prevent electrostatic attraction by neutralizing the electric charge on the gloves.
• Electrostatic discharge: Electrostatic discharge (ESD) is the sudden flow of electricity between two objects with different electric potentials. ESD can cause sparks, arcs, or currents that can damage or destroy electronic components, such as transistors, diodes, resistors, and capacitors.
• Electromagnetic Interference: ESD can also cause electromagnetic interference (EMI) that can affect the performance of other electronic devices. ESD gloves can prevent ESD by dissipating the static charge through the gloves or grounding the person.
• Static shocks: Static shocks are unpleasant and painful sensations that occur when a person touches a conductive object that has a different electric potential. Static shocks can cause discomfort, injury, or even death to workers, depending on the voltage and current of the discharge. ESD gloves can prevent static shocks by equalizing the electric potential between the person and the object. (Transforming Technologies)