Evaluating ESD Flooring for Cleanrooms & Labs

ESD Flooring, Basic Needs in Cleanrooms and Labs

First, the ESD floor—also known as an antistatic floor or static-control floor—needs to be seamless and smooth. The floor should also be flash-coved, incapable of collecting contamination. It should be easily maintained and have zero outgassing. Most specifiers would also like ergonomic attributes, such as sound attenuation and slip resistance, possibly along with some level of comfort under foot.

Simple to Maintain and Repair

The floor should be durable and simple to repair, given that many repairs require shutdowns and time for adhesives to set.

The Floor Must Inhibit Static In The Space

The ESD floor must interact with and ground other items in the lab, such as chairs, benches, carts, equipment, assemblies and personnel. The floor must also prevent static from building on people and objects as they move throughout the space.

EC rubber, AntiStatic With or Without ESD Footwear

It can be hard to combine all of these attributes because some are competing interests. Facilities engineers love seamless coatings, such as StaticWorx GroundWorx Ultra coating, for instance, but coatings are not ergonomic. Never mind the headache associated with repairing multilayer coatings. And without the strict use of ESD footwear, coatings are not low static generating.

Interlocking ESD vinyl flooring can be a great solution but the surface should be certified as a cleanroom-suitable material. It should not merely be a floor that passes baseline standards such as California 1350 emissions testing.

Regardless of its conductivity, any ESD floor used in a cleanroom or lab must inhibit body voltage generation, with and without the use of special ESD-protective footwear.

EC (electrically conductive) rubber is the only resilient ESD flooring material that is inherently low static-generating.

The Cleanroom/Lab Wish List

  • Seamless/monolithic
  • Integral flash cove and rounded corners
  • Smooth surface
  • Zero outgassing
  • Low maintenance
  • Easily repaired
  • Ergonomic
  • Low-static generating
  • Part of a lab/cleanroom ESD mitigation system
  • Cleanroom suitable test reports available
  • Test report for body voltage generation
  • Test report for electrical resistance
  • Test report with ESD lab and cleanroom seating
  • Capable of grounding carts and chairs
  • Capable of grounding people

Read: The Best ESD Floors For Cleanrooms/Labs Prevent Static Generation

Read: EC Rubber & DryFix Adhesive: Why We Love it In Cleanrooms & Labs