I'll bet that most of you have experienced the shock of walking on
The same process of static electricity generation can play havoc with your sieving process.
"Static electricity" (also called charge separation) occurs whenever four conditions exist:
1. Humidity is fairly low
2. Two surfaces are touched together, then separated
3. The surfaces are made of two different materials
4. Both surfaces are electrically insulating
For many products -- particularly hydrocarbon-based materials, plastics, reactive metals
There is a sure, but messy (and a pain-in-the-butt) solution.
In wet-sieving, the separation of fines
The liquid is used to negate static charges, break down agglomerates and lubricate near-size particles.
After the fines have been washed through the sieve, the residue is oven-dried and re-weighed.
---- Difficult, but effective.
Anything Easier?
A material that makes the particles slippery can be added to the sample, such as silica, activated charcoal, talc, magnesium carbonate, tricalcium phosphate or silicon dioxide.
If you make the
The problem is, you have to know the additive's size and adjust your results by the amount of this material that is retained.
----- This is another fix but it is still a pain.
A simple approach that might work.
Perhaps strips of anti-static sheeting , such as those used in your clothes dryer will work. This is as easy as putting a few strips in at least the small mesh sieves.
If this is effective, it is the simplest solution we know.
Static Electricity and Sieves
Yet again -- one of Nature's ways to make a simple process difficult.
Please let me know if you've found any other effective solutions to a static problem in your sieve testing.
Thanks,
Art