Safety Gloves

Byung Joon Lim10/16/2012

Safety Gloves

• Protect your hands from hazardous chemicals

• “Gloves MUST BE worn whenever handling hazardous chemicals. Appropriate gloves MUST BE provided for all laboratory employ-ees.”

– From EHS lab safety manual

• Glove compatibility charts are useful to choose proper gloves.

Glove compatibility charts

Latex• Mostly produced from natu-

ral rubber tree

• Excellent protection from aqueous solution, but weak protection from various organic chemicals

• Some people are allergic to latex.

Nitrile

• Most widely used in organic labs

• Synthetic rubber copolymer of acry-lonitrile and butadiene

• Very resistant to aliphatic hydrocar-bons, but permeable to aromatic hy-drocarbons or ketones

Neoprene

• Synthetic rubber polymer registered by DuPont

• Monomer is chloroprene.

• Similar or Better protection effect against most chemical than nitrile

• But more expensive!

Other polymers

• Butyl – isobutylene and isoprene• Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) – vinyl chloride• Viton - hexafluoropropylene and vinyli-

dene Fluoride• Ethylene vinyl alcohol (EVOH) – ethylene

and vinylalcohol

• Working very well but very expensive!• Hardly used as disposable gloves in labs

Cautious!

• “ANY glove can be permeated by chemi-cals.” – From EHS lab safety manual

• Don’t believe gloves too much - Replace used gloves regularly!

• Put on two folds of gloves (latex & nitrile)• More information for individual solvent or

chemical– http://www.showabestglove.com/site/– http://www.mapaglove.com/index.cfm