Electrostatics and applications to industrial processes

Industrial electrostatics is now a well established branch of engineering, encompassing not only important applications such as electrophotography, precipitation and coating, but also the varied and unpredictable field of static hazards. Industrial environments particularly sensitive to static charge separation include the petrochemical industry, aeronautical and aerospace operations, surgical applications, pharmaceutical and synthetic-fibre manufacturing. As in most static-induced hazard situations, charge separation leading to an incendive spark illustrates well the uncontrollable nature of electrostatic phenomena. On the other hand, the application of electrostatic phenomena and the control of electrostatic processes has been developed into an extremely elegant science. Electrophotography is perhaps the best example of this, and is probably also the application which may qualify as the electrostatic process which has contributed most to changing operating routines in offices and factories worldwide. The review does not include the hazardous effects of static electricity, as this is a vast field in itself worthy of separate treatment. Indeed, some of the applications mentioned here are themselves areas where intense research efforts have been put, resulting in many volumes of published technical papers. It would be impossible to do justice to any of these topics here, and the depth of treatment is therefore limited in an attempt to reproduce what is probably more of an awareness document than an in-depth technical analysis.