Static electricity Home Work

Static electricity is the imbalance of positive and negative charges. An atom contains protons, neutrons and electrons. Protons are positively charged, electrons are negatively charged and neutrons are neutral. Usually, atoms have the same number of electrons and protons. Then the atom has no charge, it is "neutral."If you rub things together, electrons can move from one atom to another this is how atoms get extra electrons. They have a negative charge. Atoms that lose electrons have a positive charge. When charges are separated like this, it is called static electricity.

There are appliances which uses the Principle of static electricity. They are:

Dust removal: There are some appliances that can eliminate dust from the air, like air purifiers. They use static electricity to alter the charges in the dust particles so that they stick to a plate or filter of the purifier that has an opposite charge as that of the dust (opposite charges attract each other).This effect is also used in industrial smokestacks to reduce the pollution that they generate, although they work in a very large scale, the effect is basically the same as the home air purifier.

Photocopy: Copy machines use static to make ink get attracted to the areas where we need the information copied. It uses the charges to apply the ink only in the areas where the paper to be copied is darker (usually this means text or other information) and not where the paper is white, this process is called xerography.

Car painting: To make sure a car's paint is uniform and that it will resist the high speeds and weather to protect the car's metal interior, it is applied with a static charge. The metal body of the car is submerged in a substance that charges it positively, and the paint is charged negatively with the paint sprayer.This process ensures a uniform layer of paint, since when there is enough negative paint in the car the extra will be repelled by the paint already in the car.It also ensures that the paint won't fall off, since the electrical attraction between the paint and the car is stronger than if it was just sprayed.

Static electricity is used in many real life situations. In general we use it for spray painting, car painting, photocopies, dust remover, filters and other pollution control devices. These are the main industries were static electricity is used besides giving an electrical shock. Hopefully from reading this you have learned about static electricity and the main uses of it in everyday life.