This makes no sense. Moving air is moving air. Blowing compressed gas is
no more likely to generate static than sucking with a motor drive.
In order to generate a static charge you have to have friction.
And there has to be an absence of a ground.
This is why shuffling across a dry carpet and touching a doorknob
draws a spark. You grounded your self, or actually you moved
the charge to a lower potential zone. Moving air by itself DOES
generate friction, but not that much at the speeds we are talking
about for a cooling fan. Vaccum cleaner motors are grounded,
so we can discount their influence.
Helicopter rotors aren't, which is why static charges occur there.
The charge is created by the dirt particles in the airstream moving
across the relevant surface. That may not be the right explanation
but it has a compelling basis in physics.
I believe that the particle laden airstream over the inner surface of
the vaccum cleaner hose can and will create a charge that will seek
ground when the hose tip is applied to a lower potential object.
If the hose isn't already grounded, that is.
This isn't the case with compressed air, which first starts out clean,
and second expands and cools (acquires moisture) as it is expelled.
I'd welcome a real physicist's explanation of this.
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