Raising: how carbon contamination can drive static charging

Simone Ciampi is in the School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley 6102, Australia.

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Insulating materials, which are those that resist the flow of electricity, accumulate electrical charges when rubbed or slid against another surface, or when indented or bent 1 – 3 .

This phenomenon is known as contact electrification or triboelectric charging.

Examples in everyday life can be both amusing and dramatic 4 : hair standing on end, a party balloon sticking to walls and, at larger scales, lightning and dust storms.

However, triboelectric charging is hard to predict.

A particularly puzzling example is the asymmetric charging of two objects made from the same material which, according to simple theory, should not occur.

Writing in Nature , Grosjean et al .

5 report that surface contamination from carbon compounds, which is present on nearly all objects that are exposed to air, can cause this same-material contact electrification.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-00631-8
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