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The secrets of static electricity are finally being revealed

The mechanism that causes static electricity to build up is a mystery. Experiments now reveal that materials ‘remember’ past contacts with each other — and this determines how electric charge is transferred in future contacts.
By
  1. Daniel J. Lacks

    1. Daniel J. Lacks is in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106, USA.

  2. Mamadou Sow

    1. Mamadou Sow is at the Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection Authority (ASNR), PSN-RES/SCA, Gif-sur-Yvette, 91192, France.

When people see socks sticking together after coming out of the dryer, they don’t typically associate this ‘static cling’ with cutting-edge research. However, scientists’ understanding of the process that causes static cling — contact electrification — is almost nil. Contact electrification occurs owing to the transfer of electric charge between two objects that are brought into contact and then separated. A barrier to understanding the phenomenon is the notorious inconsistency of contact-electrification experiments, in which the magnitude and even the polarity of charge transfer can vary from trial to trial. Writing in Nature, Sobarzo et al.1 report a series of clever experiments showing that, in certain situations, this apparent inconsistency actually has a hidden order that provides insights into contact electrification.

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Nature 638, 616-618 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-00298-7

References

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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