Does silk conduct electricity

Answer 1

Usually not. But there's a lot of stuff behind that idea. Grab a seat and lend an ear. We'll walk through it. If you take a silk cloth and rub it on, say, a balloon, a form of what is called contact electrification will take place. It's sometimes called triboelectric effect, and you know it as static electricity. The friction causes electrical charges to move, and they will separate in this case because the silk cloth and the balloon are not generally good conductors. In contrast, if you rubbed a metal rod with a silk scarf, you could rub all day and not significantly separate any charges. That's because the metal conducts the charges to permit them to "get back where they came from" so no static charge can build up. Not a difficult idea to understand, is it? Nope. But let's get personal. You walk across a rug on a warm, dry day and reach out for the door knob. Zap! You were just electrocuted by a few thousand volts (but very little current). The friction of your movement across the rug separated charges, and because the air is dry and won't conduct static charges well, and because your shoes and the rug are generally not conductors, you built up a healthy static charge. Then you provided a current path by reaching for the door knob. Electricity is "really fast" and the static charge could actually "feel" the metal of the door knob nearby as you reached for it. And because the voltage was so high, it ionized the air across the small gap between you fingers and the knob and current followed that ionized path. It was a case of a mini-bolt of lightning. Really! Not kidding! All kinds of friction brings with it the possibility of separating charges. And the charges separate all the time. We just don't generally notice it because the charges are constantly trying to neutralize themselves and no significant charge buildup occurs - unless its a warm dry day and we zap ourselves or there is a thunderstorm. Separating charges isn't that tough. Unroll some plastic kitchen wrap. Every time we do that, we participate in an experiment with static electricity. You've done it yourself. Separating charges is not difficult, but conditions have to support "keeping the charges apart" for a charge to accumulate. As the kitchen wrap is a poor conductor, separated charges "stay separated" and we have to battle the stuff to keep it from balling up on itself. That's not too difficult to grasp, either, is it? Nope. So we're back where we started. Your silk cloth is not positively charged. But it can be used to separate charges by rubbing it on that balloon we mentioned. And because the silk cloth and the balloon are not willing to conduct electricity, the charges stay separated and can be built up to some extent. You'll find some links below to relevant Wikipedia posts.

Answer 2

No. The energy created on silk stays where it is: static electricity, unlike metal where the electricity spreads out. Its resistance is almost equivalent to air.

Answer 3

Yes. It has both the charges, positive and negative. Therefore is fabric is called neutral.