Cataloqe

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

protective gloves

Chemical resistance of



protective gloves

Protective gloves are available in a wide range of natural

and synthetic materials; however, there is no single glove

material (or combination of glove materials) able to provide

unlimited resistance to any individual or combination of

chemical agents. There are three ways in which any

protective glove will, at some stage, fail to protect the

wearer from exposure to any chemical agent and these are:

permeation – the process by which a chemical agent

migrates through the protective glove at a molecular level;

penetration – the bulk flow of a chemical agent through

closures, porous materials, seams and pinholes or other

imperfections in the protective glove;

degradation – a damaging change in one or more

physical properties of the protective glove as a result of

exposure to a chemical agent.

Selecting suitable protective

gloves

The selection of suitable protective gloves is a complicated

procedure and the degree of protection they give is not

always easy to establish. When choosing gloves, always

seek expert help from the manufacturer/distributor of the

chemical agent or glove. They are best placed to provide

you with glove performance test data which can be used

to assist in predicting the permeation, penetration and

degradation of specific glove materials by specific

chemical agents.

There are four requirements which must be met for any

protective glove selected to be suitable. The glove must:

be appropriate for the risk(s) and the conditions where

it is used;

take into account the ergonomic requirements and

state of health of the person wearing it;

fit the wearer correctly, if necessary, after adjustments;

either prevent or control the risk involved without

increasing the overall risk.

Proper selection should therefore take into consideration

the wearer, the workplace conditions and the protective

glove. Employees need to be trained in the correct way

to put on, wear and then take off protective gloves to

ensure maximum protection. There should be adequate

facilities for disposal of contaminated protective gloves.

If protective gloves are selected or worn incorrectly there

is every possibility that this may increase the wearer’s

overall risk to health because:

contaminant may get inside the glove to reside

permanently against the skin which could cause greater

exposure than if a glove had not been worn at all; or,

wearing a glove for extended periods can lead to the

development of excessive moisture (sweat) on the skin

which in itself will act as a skin irritant; or,

wearing gloves manufactured in natural rubber (latex)

can cause an allergenic reaction in susceptible individuals,

causing the skin disease contact urticaria to occur.

Selecting protective gloves must be part of an overall health

and safety risk assessment for the job to be done. The risk

assessment must clearly demonstrate that exposure to the

health and safety risk is unavoidable and that other

methods of control are not reasonably practicable.

Remember that gloves should be used as a control

measure only as a last resort1 and where other methods

of control are not reasonably practicable. This is because:

gloves only protect the wearer – they do not remove

the contaminant from the workplace environment;

some types of glove are inconvenient and interfere

with the way people work;

wearing gloves interferes with the wearer’s sense of

touch;

the extent of protection depends upon good fit and

attention to detail;

if protective gloves are used incorrectly, or badly

maintained, the wearer may receive no protection;

for glove design to be effective, the glove needs to be

used correctly in the workplace.

Because glove selection is a complex issue, employers

and others responsible for selection will inevitably demand

a simple, easy-to-read guide. Table 1 gives a simple guide

to selection to help with glove material choice.

Table 1 recommends the most suitable glove materials

to protect wearers from exposure. The importance of

using a material depends on the extent of exposure. For

chemical groups such as strong acids, only one choice of

glove material is identified as most suitable, whereas a

range of materials may be suitable for other chemical

groups such as weak acids. Where there is a choice of

glove material, the extent of exposure to the chemical

agent will be a significant factor in choosing between, for

example, a neoprene glove or a less costly natural rubber

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