Have my ESD mat been damage

[buvikingen]

Hi eevblog forum

I found out today that some isopropyl alcohol have spilt on to my rubber esd mat. I Know you are not allowed to clean a mat with this since it dries it out. Do you guys/girls think my mat have taken damage from the isopropyl alcohol. It have been laying on it for About 1-2 hours.

Looking forward to your replies.

[wraper]

No. What will really damage the mat over time is fat coming from your skin. It penetrates it and turns black bottom layer into soft gunk.

[thm_w]

Its normal to clean ESD mats with isopropyl alcohol. Although you are right this company is claiming too much will cause issues:

https://desco.descoindustries.com/DescoCatalog/Worksurface-Mats/Mat-Accessories-Cleaners/Reztore-Antistatic/10446/
"Excessive use of alcohol-based cleaners may dry-out mats (vinyl or rubber) and degrade performance"

If its not visually damaged I wouldn't worry about it. Also isopropyl I would expect to evaporate within a few minutes, not sit for hours.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/cleaning-rubber-esb-mat/

[buvikingen]

 Thank you so much for your feedback. I ain't that consern anymore now. I Really appriciate your Help

[paul8f]

I had a very similar question....

My workbench had some very old mats that were failing the ESD test (the bonding to earth test was ok, but the static-dissipative test of the mat itself would fail... it showed up as insulative on the tester scale). Interestingly as an experiment I cleaned a small patch with IPA, and it passed...marginally.....).

Has anybody tried the 'Reztore' mat rejuvenating spray that was linked above? I'm thinking that some products out there may very well clean the mat, but also reduce its dissipative qualities ....

[Berni]

Isopropyl is fine for cleaning ESD mats.

It might leech out some of the die and leave some color on the towel you use to clean it, so it might seam pretty alarming but it doesn't really leech enough out of it to matter. One thing i did find left a visible mark is 3D printer UV cure resin dripping on one, it seamed to pull so much die out of the mat that it turned from blue to a slightly greenish blue.

For rubber objects like that its the oils that can really attack it. Also WD40 is known to slowly over time turn some rubbery materials in to a gross gooey mush.