The Critical Conductivity of Electro-Condutive Fibers to Obtain a Good Antistatic Pereformance

It is well known that there may be a critical conductivity which gives a good antistatic performance to electro-conductive fibers (ECF). However. in the past, this critical point was not clear because there was no accurate evaluation system to measure the antistatic properties. The authors recently developed a new measuring apparatus, (KB-system), which has excellent accuracy and reliability for evaluating the anti-static performance of fabrics. By using the KB system, the critical point has been determined to be 1×109Ω•cm for both carbon black-applied ECF and metallic oxide (semiconductor)-applied ECF. This value is one hundred times greater than that of antistatic fibers prepared by using antistatic agents. The results show the existence of essential difference in discharging mechanisms for ECF and antistatic fibers.