Industry has an entire science on controlling static - is called Electro-Static Discharge (ESD) control, and one of the fundamentals is grounding all conductors - example of a program -
Desco - Developing an ESD Control Program (descoindustries.com).
The ubiquitous carbon fiber (or Thunderon) record brush, is the simplest of methods to dissipate static charge from the record surface, but there are some nuances to how these work and how effective are they. First, in ESD world, conductive and dissipative have very different meanings, but specific resistive defintions. Generally, for ESD control you do not want to discharge static too quickly so the wrist strap and ESD mats ground wires have resistors installed to slow down the rate of static charge dissipation. This is done to prevent shorting out sensitive semiconductors.
Otherwise, by this paper, the implication is that brushes are only so effective -
Microsoft Word - SEALEZE_WHITE_PAPER_Final dam.doc. Enough to dissipate the record static charge below the level that causes noise, but not enough to prevent other problems. The article (addressed in a prior post). Phonograph Reproduction 1978, James H. Kogen, Audio Magazine May 1978
Audio-1978-05.pdf (worldradiohistory.com) goes into some detail on static. The article indicates that static is not uniform but exists as islands on a record. Additionally, once the static gets high enough to discharge to the cartridge it only reduces to about 4200 volts. A static charge on the record of 4200 volts will not create noise by itself, but it can by electrostatic attractive forces cause a transient increase in cartridge VTF as much as 0.375 grams leading to distortion and premature wear.
Industry has benchtop air ionizers that come in various price points from certified units such as
Desco - 60505 High Output Bench Top Ionizer, 120VAC (descoindustries.com) to the low-cost knock-offs
Amazon.com: YUCHENGTECH Ionizing Air Blower ESD Ionizer Fan Static Eliminator Fan Desktop Anti Static Ionizer Fan Electrostatic Discharge Fan 110V : Industrial & Scientific of unknown quality and ozone generation (which is very toxic and eats Buna-N rubber) to a very small device with no specified price -
Ultra-Compact Static Eliminators | KEYENCE America. How these work is nicely described here
Technical Guide - STATIC REMOVERS (IONIZERS) (panasonic.biz).
For turntables, one of the 1st actions is to ground the plater via the bearing or spindle. However, if the platter is not conductive such as acrylic, trying to ground the plater can be difficult. Some platter mats are conductive or dissipative so that if the record has static charge when placed down the charge will slowly dissipate through the mat to the spindle/patter if it is grounded. Otherwise, some platter mats such as felt are notorious for producing static.
However, its always good to confirm that the problem is static and this is easy enough to do by holding the record above your arm 1-2". Do the hairs on your arm lift up to record - if so, its static. Note that a full wet clean will dissipate all static on a record. Once the record is free of static, the trick is keeping it that way.
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