‘Tis the season of static electric shocks
The constant zapping that accompanies touching any object during the winter months can be very annoying, yet harmless. The zap, more commonly known as static electricity, is just a buildup of imbalanced charges on the surface of an object, whether it be your skin or a doorknob. The charges build up through frictional contact with another material, which is called triboelectric effect. Think of rubbing a balloon over your head or sliding across a carpet in wool socks, these two material build up imbalanced charges through the frictional contact. As you move across the floor, your body picks up more negative charges and increasing the imbalance of charges on you. This causes your body to become more negative and like charges repel each other, which is what causes your hair to stand on end. The moment you touch an object you discharge, creating that well known annoying zap.
What causes this zap has a lot to do with the type of air that’s in place across a region. Air is an insulator, meaning that electrons can’t freely flow through it. Moisture on the other hand is a conductor, meaning electrons can freely pass through the water vapor. The warmer the air, the more moisture that is available and less likely that you’ll get shocked. It’s worse in the winter, because colder air holds less moisture, which leads to that annoying and sometimes painful shock. Add in the fact that we constantly have our heaters going in our house and we create even drier air, as the air being brought in from outside can become as dry as the desert sand.
Static electricity occurs on a much larger scale in the form of lightning. While a lightning bolt can be as high as one billion volts, an electric shock from your skin to a door knob can be as powerful as 20,000 volts. It’s not enough to kill you, but just enough to be annoying. For perspective, a typical household socket is around 110 volts.
As winter continues to build into the region once more, you may find yourself getting shocked more often. It makes sense that to decrease your chance of getting shocked, you should increase the moisture content of the air. Not only increasing the moisture, but following a list of other suggestions will prevent you from constantly being shocked.
– De-static your home with a humidifier.
– Moisturize your skin on a daily basis.
– Wear cotton clothes, as cotton is neutral in static charges.
– Use leather sole shoes as opposed to rubber sole.
– Constantly touch metal objects through the day to discharge the build up of charges on your skin.
Stay with ABC 17 News as we continue to track the drier air tracking into Mid-Missouri and follow us on Twitter @ABC17Stormtrack.
