No damage to electronic transportation trays through short circuits

A common problem for users of plastic transportation trays is charging of the trays by friction, followed by uncontrolled discharge of the accumulated charges. This causes electrical currents which damage the electronics devices being transported. This leads to cost implications as scrap rates increase or in the worst case malfunction leading to complaints at customer level.

Current solutions to avoid and control the electrostatic charging of transportation boxes are antistatic additives, incorporated into / applied to the plastic substrates. They include Carbon Black and migratory systems (spray coating). However, both of these solutions have drawbacks.

Spray coating and migratory antistatic agents, which are incorporated into the plastics only work in combination with humidity meaning that the ESD (Electro-Static Discharge) protection is unreliable under different environmental conditions. Electronic devices could also show corrosion and therewith malfunction through plate-out of the migratory substances.

Boxes can only be black in color if the standard solution is Carbon Black. Users may want the option of having color coordinated trays to differentiate between product lines, thereby speeding up the production flow.
Due to inherent conductivity, Carbon Black leads to hard discharge resulting in high currents, damaging electronics devices which are being transported in the boxes.
Carbon Black solutions also suffer due to reduction in mechanical properties, parts can become brittle and the number of times a tray can be reused reduces. This increases the costs by early replacement.