The typical laboratory is home to an extraordinarily diverse and heterogeneous brew of different chemicals and substances, some of which are quite reactive. With all of these reactions going on, electrons are going to be flying around and changing energy levels, and charges — both positive and negative, and of varying intensities — will be moving around and swapping spaces.
In an environment like that, the buildup of static electricity is an ever-present concern. Under everyday conditions, a little bit of static electricity is virtually never cause for any serious concern. But when sensitive equipment and volatile chemicals surround you, that story can be rather different. Indeed, mitigating electrostatic discharges is often one of the principal safety goals in most labs.
It is this important goal that RDM Industrial Products’ static control furniture is designed to help meet your needs. All of our factory-direct lab furniture is proudly manufactured in the USA, but our anti-static furnishings number among some of our very proudest accomplishments.
Here’s a bit of important information about our anti-static furnishings, why they are so critical to so many workplaces and how it is that they work their magic.
Why Use Static Control Furniture?
Workplace managers are already burdened with having to make a large number of critical decisions. More than a few of which involve the selection and purchase of key equipment. Given that you’re probably working under a budget and that all kinds of tools and furnishings are competing for your dollar, the first and most important question that you may be asking is: Why is static-dissipating furniture so important?
One side of the answer to this question can be summed up in a single word: safety. As already alluded to, even a single spark of static electricity that goes off at the wrong time while in the vicinity of flammable chemicals can cause a catastrophe. Given the horrendous damage not only to important equipment but also to life and limb that this can cause, it’s just not worth it to risk allowing the buildup of static in your lab.
In particular, if you work in a lab that contains gases like oxygen, hydrogen or carbon dioxide, static-dissipating furniture should be non-negotiable.
The other side of why anti-static furnishings are important is that static electricity can disrupt the functioning of many important devices. It can throw a measuring apparatus out of kilter. Or even hinder the functioning of ventilation system if you’re not careful. This many not be as dramatic as a chemical explosion, but it’s no less capable of crippling your lab. If the tools in your lab don’t work is intended, all of your workers’ effort might as well be for naught.
What Kinds of Static Control Furnishings Are There?
RDM ESD Static Control Carts
Now that you have some idea of the overriding importance of industrial-quality ESD furniture, our next order of business is to walk you through some of the many different kinds of static control units that RDM can build for you.
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Carts:
Carts are an incredibly useful tool to have in a great many different work environments. They enable swift transportation of tools across the work area, and they make it easy to distribute safety equipment and other necessities to workers. Static control carts combine these features with the safety features of all anti-static furniture that we have discussed above. If you need to side a dangerous chemical or a sensitive tool across a room, you can use static control carts to do so while remaining confident that the chances of an accident occurring have been brought to a minimum. We manufacture a wide variety of such carts. Whether you need small transportation cart or a larger one meant for storage. Or you need carts with two shelves or with many more than that. Maybe you just need the shelves to be fixed in place or adjustable. RDM has you covered.
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Workbenches and Tables:
RDM Workbench Table with ESD Static Control Table Top Surface.
Reliable workbenches are arguably the most important pieces of furniture in the entire laboratory. It is impossible to imagine much work being done without them. Crucially, they are also where lab researchers synthesize compounds and perform their experiments. That makes them the epicentres for all of the potentially devastating consequences of using reactive chemicals. Thus, no lab without ESD static control workbenches can be said to truly be taking safety seriously. We cannot emphasize enough how important it is to have ESD static control workbenches and tables in your lab.
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Shelves:
Anti-static shelves available in two ways. As accessories to other anti-static furniture like carts or workbenches or as standalone units in their own right. Our standalone units are large and stationary. And we include the option for you to be able to adjust the distance between the shelves. If added onto a work table, they provide workers with additional space.
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Static Control Furniture Accessories:
We also manufacture a number of accessories to our furniture that can also be made to have static dissipating properties. Some of our ESD static control accessories include things like adjustable table legs and cantilever shelves. We also offer overhead table racks and cabinet doors with static control surfaces. We also sell anti-static solutions that you can apply to all kinds of surfaces.
Bear in mind that we can custom design all kinds of ESD static control furniture accessories. As well as other furniture pieces for you according to your precise specifications. And to further increase workplace safety, we can also make our industrial & laboratory furniture flame-resistant and chemical-resistant.
Have a look at some of our industrial-duty ESD static control furniture. For products meant to be used at a finer-grained level, we recommend looking here.
Conclusion
We hope to have impressed upon you the extreme importance of properly guarding against the emergence of electrostatic discharges in all sorts of industrial and laboratory settings. Although much of our emphasis has been placed here on research laboratories and the special dangers that unexpected electrostatic discharges present for them, labs are by no means the only workplaces where static control furniture is needed. Any kind of industrial or factory setting in which machines are doing sensitive work is a prime candidate for the use of industrial-duty ESD static control furniture.
With more than four decades of experience under our belts, RDM is one of the world’s premier industrial furniture manufacturers. We pride ourselves not only on our ability to supply you with the industrial-quality furniture that you need. But also to design everything according to your exact specifications — thus putting the power into your hands.
We encourage you to browse through all of our specialized industrial furniture. This knowledge will help when upgrading your lab or industrial space into a force to be reckoned with.