Materials are made of molecules that are typically electrically unbiased on the grounds that they contain parallel quantities of positive charges (protons in their cores) and negative charges (electrons in shells encompassing the core). The wonder of friction based electricity requires a partition of positive and negative charges.

Static energy is the immobile electric charge that has been accumulated in an object. This is mainly produced by the movement of friction, by the separation of positive and negative charges. When two pieces of material come into contact with one another, there is a possibility that the electrons travel from one material to another. This leads to an excess amount of positive charge on one of the materials and an equal amount of negative charge on the other material causing an imbalance and thus creating static energy. This leads to an action potential which is in the form of a spark, crackling, or the attraction of dust or hair. 

Most fundamentally, static electricity is when atoms that make up an object gain a charge. This can happen in a variety of ways, but teh most common is through friction. When two objects repeatedly come into contact with each other at a rapid pace (friction), it can cause the atoms making up one object to lose some of their electrons, while the other may gain those. It is not surprising that this happens, as different atoms are more stable either losing electrons or gaining electrons (there is a list of items that are most likely to swap electrons, known as the triboelectric list).  When this happens, atoms gain a charge due to the imbalance in electrons (the more electrons they lose the more positive their charge) - this is what we know as static electricity, and is quite common in our daily lives, and has an abundance of real-world applications. For example, after sliding your feet across a carpet, the electrons lost or gained by your body generate a charge, which is then discharged through attraction by a metal doorknob