Desco - Questions And Answers

Here at MKS we are starting a "improved" comprehensive ESD program. My particular region involves a Class 100 clean room. The problem that I am running into is.. "how do we get a wrist strap on each individual?" I really do not want each person to pull their glove down and buttoning the cord to the strap. This defeats the whole purpose of the clean room with people exposing their hand/wrist for an amount of time. Do you have any advice? Would grounded mats and CleaN-DEX Nitrile ESD gloves (surface resistivityof 10 e10 ohms/sq.) be a good start? Any advice back would be greatly appreciated! - Anonymous

1) Grounded mat worksurfaces would remove charges from items placed on it
2) Wearing a low charging, dissipative glove would somewhat reduce the generation of charges
3) But the person would generate and carry electrostatic charges
4) So, if the person is ungrounded, when touching a ESD susceptive item, there may be an ESD event
One thought that might help combat this and not expose the operators skin while in the clean room would be wearing a metal wrist strap over their nitrile glove. To test the effectiveness of this setup, try measuring the charge decay on the operator while they're wearing a metal Wrist Strap over their Nitrile ESD gloves.
Another solution would be to use conductive cleanroom booties in conjunction with an ESD grounded floor.

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