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We are presently using a conductive floor covering on concrete floors. We are trying to find a new supplier for paint and were told that we should be using static dissipating and not conductive paint. We manufacture gun powder for muzzleloaders. I need to know what is the better choice and the pro's and con's of each. Thanks. - Anonymous, Herington, KS

In general (for electronics and semiconductor industries) we like to use high conductive or low dissipative ESD floors. The EIA-625 states an ESD floor should be less than 1x10^9 ohms. In ESD control, conductive refers to the resistance of a material that is less than 1x10^4 ohms and dissipative being greater than 1x10^4 ohms. Conductive also has another definition, the ability to conduct free charges. By this definition, anything that is less than 1x10^11 ohms is considered conductive. Our Statproof® floor paint is (by definition) conductive in the dissipative range for ESD. The RTT is at 2.0x10^5 ohms and RTG at 8.0x10^5 ohms. For ESD floors, you may anticipate the floor getting somewhat dirty over the course of a day and ‘loading’ up (becoming more resistive) because of the dirt (usually silicon [sand] and other foreign materials). Having the floor spec in the low 100,000 ohm range (1.0x10^5 ohms) is good. You want the floor to be conductive enough to remove charges from foot grounders and other mobile objects, but not too conductive to cause ESD events when coming in contact with a charged conductor. You should really check with the NFPA standards on ESD control in handling explosives as this is not our expertise.

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