A static electricity mystery comes to the surface

A static electricity mystery comes to the surface Skip to content Subscribe today Every print subscription comes with full digital access Subscribe Now Menu All Topics Health Humans Anthropology Health & Medicine Archaeology Psychology View All Life Animals Plants Ecosystems Paleontology Neuroscience Genetics Microbes View All Earth Agriculture Climate Oceans Environment View All Physics Materials Science Quantum Physics Particle Physics View All Space Astronomy Planetary Science Cosmology View All Magazine Menu All Stories Multimedia Reviews Puzzles Collections Educator Portal Century of Science Unsung characters Coronavirus Outbreak Newsletters Investors Lab About SN Explores Our Store SIGN IN Donate Home INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM SINCE 1921 SIGN IN Search Open search Close search Home INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM SINCE 1921 All Topics Earth Agriculture Climate Oceans Environment Humans Anthropology Health & Medicine Archaeology Psychology Life Animals Plants Ecosystems Paleontology Neuroscience Genetics Microbes Physics Materials Science Quantum Physics Particle Physics Space Astronomy Planetary Science Cosmology Tech Computing Artificial Intelligence Chemistry Math Science & Society All Topics Health Humans Humans Anthropology Health & Medicine Archaeology Psychology Recent posts in Humans Archaeology A new study questions when people first reached South America By Tom Metcalfe47 minutes ago Health & Medicine Are pig organs the future of transplantation? By Meghan RosenMarch 17, 2026 Health & Medicine Smartwatch data can be used to assess early diabetes risk By Elie DolginMarch 16, 2026 Life Life Animals Plants Ecosystems Paleontology Neuroscience Genetics Microbes Recent posts in Life Microbes How warming is shifting microbial worlds By Erin Garcia de Jesús6 hours ago Animals Sharks are ingesting drugs in the Bahamas By Joshua Rapp LearnMarch 18, 2026 Animals Platypus fur has a surprising feature seen only in bird feathers By Jude ColemanMarch 17, 2026 Earth Earth Agriculture Climate Oceans Environment Recent posts in Earth Earth Earth’s continental plates were moving 3.48 billion years ago By Douglas Fox47 minutes ago Microbes How warming is shifting microbial worlds By Erin Garcia de Jesús6 hours ago Earth To make a ‘Snowball Earth,’ sci-fi moves fast. Geology is far slower By Carolyn GramlingMarch 18, 2026 Physics Physics Materials Science Quantum Physics Particle Physics Recent posts in Physics Physics A static electricity mystery comes to the surface By Emily ConoverMarch 18, 2026 Plants Tree tops sparkle with electricity during thunderstorms By Lily BurtonMarch 10, 2026 Physics When the pressure’s off, this superconductor appears to break records By Emily ConoverMarch 9, 2026 Space Space Astronomy Planetary Science Cosmology Recent posts in Space Space One possible recipe for life on Titan is a bust By Tina Hesman SaeyMarch 11, 2026 Astronomy A strange ‘chirp’ in a brilliant stellar blast points to a magnetar By Jay BennettMarch 11, 2026 Planetary Science NASA’s DART spacecraft changed an asteroid’s orbit around the sun By Lisa GrossmanMarch 6, 2026 News Physics A static electricity mystery comes to the surface A layer of carbon compounds determines the charging of identical materials Static electricity, a charge buildup caused by rubbing or touching, is a poorly understood phenomenon, despite its prevalence. Craig P. Jewell/Moment/Getty Images By Emily Conover March 18, 2026 at 12:00 pm Share this:Share Share via email (Opens in new window) Email Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit Share on X (Opens in new window) X Print (Opens in new window) Print Listen to this article This is a human-written story voiced by AI. Got feedback? Take our survey . (See our AI policy here .) DENVER — Static electricity is a touchy subject. Touch or rub two materials together, and they can exchange electric charge. But the details behind the phenomenon of static electricity are poorly understood. Now, scientists have identified a hidden factor at play. A thin veneer of carbon-rich molecules alters how identical materials exchange charge, scientists report in the March 19 Nature. That suggests that surface contamination plays a major role in static electricity. “Static electricity is not child’s play,” physicist Scott Waitukaitis said in a March 16 talk at the American Physical Society’s Global Physics Summit. “Quite literally, it could be the reason that we have ground to stand on.” The charge created by colliding particles in protoplanetary disks is thought to help planets, including Earth, form. It’s also the source of volcanic lightning, helps buoy sand lofted in dust storms and can cause industrial accidents such as fires in sawmills. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. When two identical particles crash into each other, one gains a positive charge and the other goes negative. But scientists didn’t know what determines which particle gets which charge. Waitukaitis and colleagues investigated this effect in silicon dioxide, or silica, a commonly occurring material found in sand, rock and glass. The researchers bounced a tiny silica sphere off a silica plate and measured the charge the sphere gained. To do this, scientists used a technique called acoustic levitation, harnessing sound waves to suspend the half-millimeter silica bead in midair before dropping it. That technique avoided any unwanted effects from physically touching the object. Scientists levitated a tiny silica sphere (center) using sound waves, before dropping it onto a silica plate below and measuring the charge it gained.Galien Grosjean Some spheres charged positively while the plate charged negatively. But some interactions went the other way. However, if the researchers heated the sphere or plate to 200° Celsius for two hours, and then let it cool, they could manipulate the effect. A previously heated sphere almost always charged negatively to an untreated plate, while a heated plate made the sphere charge positive. The same thing happened when the spheres were exposed to plasma, a mix of electrically charged particles. In both cases, the treated object picked up a negative charge, and the unadulterated one became positively charged. Close inspection of the materials revealed that the heat and plasma treatments stripped off a thin layer of carbon-rich molecules from the surface of the silica. Almost every object exposed to air is similarly encrusted, thanks to ever-present organic molecules floating around. “This carbon cake, it just grows on everything, in every environment,” says Waitukaitis, of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria in Klosterneuburg.After a sphere was heat-treated, its carbon layer returned over several hours, due to exposure to carbon-rich molecules in the air. The sphere’s charging behavior appro