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
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
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