Vitamin stops static electricity
Clearing out uncharged molecules may prevent charge buildup
A little vitamin E could zap static cling.

The chemical wipes out static electricity by getting rid of molecules that stabilize charge, researchers report in the Sept. 20 Science. By adding vitamin E or similar chemicals to coatings for electronics, manufacturers could fend off the electrostatic shocks that fry computer chips.
Static electricity may be best known for delivering tiny jolts to people shuffling across carpets. But in electronics, “the situation is very serious,” says physical chemist Fernando Galembeck of the University of Campinas in Brazil, who was not involved with the new work. Beyond messing up motherboards, electrostatic shocks can spark fires and explosions that injure people and damage property. “These things happen all the time,” he says.
Static electricity has kindled scientists’ interest for millennia, ever since Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus purportedly charged up a hunk of amber by rubbing it against wool around 2,600 years ago. Still, how exactly friction causes static electricity remains a mystery, says chemical engineer Daniel Lacks of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. “What happens when things charge is totally unknown scientifically.”
In the last few years, Bilge Baytekin, study leader Bartosz Grzybowski and colleagues at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., have chipped away at the big unknown. They’ve shown how to charge two pieces of identical polymer just by touching them together. When the two pieces rub against one another, friction breaks chemical bonds on the polymers’ surface. Then new bonds form between the pieces, making them cling to each other like sticky tape, says Baytekin.
When researchers peel the pieces apart, the bonds linking the polymers together rip, leaving different chemical fragments