A semi-quantitative tribo-electric series for polymeric materials: the influence of chemical structure and properties

A semi-quantitative tribo-charging series that includes a wide range of synthetic and natural polymers was constructed by combining four qualitative triboelectric series from literature reports plus quantitative charging results with metal contacts. This not only connects the results from different laboratories but it also provides a series with a wide variety of polymeric materials which can be used to estimate their relative charging capacity. The ordering of the polymers in the series suggests that the charging develops from the transfer of protons between the contacting surfaces.