Glove permeation of chemicals: The state of the art of current practice, Part 1: Basics and the permeation standards

Abstract

Skin exposure to chemicals in the workplace environment is a major concern, the hands being the major exposure sites. Employers purchase gloves that have permeation data generated from permeation “standards” of the American Society for Testing and Materials International (ASTM International), European Committee for Standardization (EN), and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that test pieces of glove material and allow a user-defined temperature. The relevant standards based on continuous contact are ASTM F739, ASTM D6978, EN 374, EN 16523, and ISO 6529. The aim was to analyze the current state of the scientific literature on glove permeation in the 21^st century up to December 2018. The introduction sets out the background, objectives and rationale of the review and its methodology followed by presentation of basic glove chemical resistance terms and Fick’s first law of diffusion, the details of the major permeation standards, their comparison, their critique, their research gaps; the scientific literature on whole glove permeation, and final conclusions. The major recommendation was to harmonize all the permeation standards and perform them at realistic work conditions, especially temperature. The whole glove system would be most useful for testing the thinnest gloves.

Keywords:

• ASTM F739
• breakthrough times
• dextrous robot hand
• gloves
• review
• steady state permeation rates

Additional information

Funding

Thanks to the UCLA Center for Occupational and Environmental Health for SQH salary support. Sean Banaee was partially supported by a Graduate Fellowship of the Southern California NIOSH Education and Research Center, Grant Agreement Number T42OH008412 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of CDC.