Antistatic and ESD safety shoes are both conductive safety footwear. This means they protect electrical equipment by sending (conducting) electrical charges to the ground, preventing a static shock, charge or spark. Conductive safety shoes are worn in industries in which a static shock is problematic or could trigger a fire or explosion and are not the same as isolating safety shoes, like EH-rated safety shoes, which protect you from completing an electrical circuit to the ground.

Antistatic safety shoes vs. ESD safety shoes

ESD and antistatic bring a lot of confusion, and not just when it comes to safety shoes. While one includes the other, it's incorrect to say the same in reverse. Although both terms refer to contact resistance, there are fundamental differences between the two.

• ANTISTATIC safety shoes have a low electrical resistance between 0.1 and 1000 MegaOhm (MΩ). The use of antistatic safety shoes prevents a build-up of static electrical charges in the human body by sending these charges to the ground, preventing a sudden flow of electricity between electrically charged objects caused by contact.
• ESD (or ElectroStatic Discharge) safety shoes on the other hand, have an even lower electrical resistance between 0.1 and 100 (MΩ). The use of ESD safety shoes prevents a build-up of static electrical charges in the human body by sending these charges to the ground in a very safe and controlled manner. They guarantee to prevent the sudden flow of electricity between electrically charged objects caused by contact.

ESD and antistatic safety shoes are used in different type of industries to protect sensitive equipment or components from electrostatic discharges, such as aerospace, industrial equipment manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturing, electrical engineers, telecommunications equipment manufacturing, battery manufacturing, computer equipment manufacturing, medical industry, hospitals and many more.

ESD can prevent a range of harmful effects on worksites. Uncontrolled release of static charges can cause gas, fuel vapour or coal dust explosions, as well as failure of solid state electronics components such as integrated circuits. Therefore it’s crucial that people who work in these environments wear ESD or antistatic safety shoes to protect all electrical components.

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