As silicones elastomers are insulator so that accumulated charges are stagnant followed by catastrophic static discharge leads to a fatal accident. Hence, industries are trying to develop a technologically advanced static dissipative silicone tubes, says Pritam Adhikary.

 

Nowadays silicone elastomer based tubes are widely used mostly in the area of medical, pharmaceutical, biological, biotechnical, artificial cell culture industries due to its cent percent biocompatibility, high and low temperature resistance, solvent resistance properties and 

low leachability. 

 

The problem with conventional silicone tube is the development of static electricity due to friction. A static electric charge is developed whenever two adjacent surfaces are in frictional contact. Here charges are developed when fluids are passing through silicone tubes or due to electrical induction when tubes are close vicinity of some electrical instruments in medical, pharmaceutical, hospital sectors.

As silicones elastomers are insulator so that accumulated charges are stagnant followed by catastrophic static discharge leads to a fatal accident. This fatal accident comes with outputs like static shock or fire hazards. So removal of static charges are very important in those 

critical areas.

 

So industries are trying to develop a technologically advanced static dissipative silicone tubes for medical and pharmaceutical application. This tubes are biocompatible as well as conduct developed static charges more controlled way to reduce the provability of any kind of catastrophic accidents. Tubes are available in any size.

 

So static dissipative silicone tubes have similar physical properties as compare to conventional silicone tubes but has lower 

surface resistivity than conventional tube. Thus, it will not allow to accumulate static charge development and completely nullify static discharge accidents.

 

Owing to its low charge accumulation over its surfaces, static-dissipative tube is used in medical sector, pharmaceutical arenas, and bio-medical application for corrosive and aggressive materials transportation.

 

About the author:

Pritam Adhikary is the Executive (R&D) at Ami Polymer Pvt Ltd. He can be reached on Mob: +91 82389 22236, email: research@amipolymer.com

 

Following is the comparative study of conventional silicone tubes and static dissipative silicone tubes: 

 

Tube Tensile strength % Elongation Hardness Shore A° Tear strength Surface resistivity

Conventional silicone tube 68-85 kg/cm2 150-200 60-70 25 kg/cm >1012 ohms/square

Static dissipative silicone tube 68-85 kg/cm2 150-200 60-70 25 kg/cm 106-109 ohms/square