Decorative ESD-Control Flake Broadcast System
In the past, the choices for “pretty” esd floor design ideas were somewhat limited. The available products were durable and low maintenance ESD polymer floors, but aesthetically you were limited to a basic, solid color – typically dark or medium grey. The original ESD additives used to build conductivity were very dark and required the use of darker, solid color coatings with very few color choices. If you wanted color or decorative variety within your esd floor design ideas, the options were limited to ESD carpet, vinyl or rubber ESD tiles. These products certainly have their place, but are typically higher maintenance and cost with reduced wear, stain and chemical resistance characteristics.
An Attempt to Develop Aesthetically-Appealing Polymer ESD Floor Coatings
Decorative ESD Floor Coatings, Such as Metallic Epoxy, are Now Possible
Previous attempts at polymer-based decorative systems included fiber-filled and laminate style ESD coating systems. Although these did achieve brighter colors and decorative options, these systems were a multi-step, cumbersome creation that used submersed ground planes, topped with a decorative flake or quartz system with electrically active “fibers” or carbide granules that carried a charge through the coating and down to the buried conductive primer, and out to ground.
These polymer flooring systems were dependent upon great installation, and a little luck, in order for them to perform at all. Because these floors were an installation-dependent custom field creation, achieving consistent ESD performance readings was very difficult, and often resulted in “hit or miss” performance results. These esd floor design ideas were more visually appealing, but they were inferior with regard to static control flooring performance when compared to ESD carpet, vinyl tile, and rubber flooring. Additionally, these systems were almost impossible to repair because it was difficult to recreate the original contact with the conductive primer. In short, they didn’t do the job to help control static effectively.
A New Generation of ESD-Control Polymer Floor Coatings
The new generation of ESD flooring technology utilizes a polymer that has an electrically active surface ground plane with great transparency and produces predictable, consistent and repeatable results. Because the surface of the system is the ground plane and it does not rely on a buried conductive black or dark gray ground plane, there is a nearly endless range of decorative looks. The surface ground also has unmatched static control by making better contact with both people and mobile equipment.
What Happens When Performance and Aesthetics Meet?
The new Protective Industrial Polymers’ proprietary ESD technology has enabled our customers to design a monolithic long wearing floor in a variety of bright, vivid colors or applied clear over terrazzo, marbleized metallic polymer, decorative flake, and color quartz. A highly transparent ESD topcoat that serves as its own ground plane makes almost any desired aesthetic possible without sacrificing even the most critical electrical performance requirements, such as extremely low voltage generation.
Is static control a concern in your business processes?
Protective Industrial Polymers offers a complete line of ESD-Control Flooring Systems.
- Do ESD-Control Floor Coatings Need to Be Ugly? - October 6, 2016