What are laboratory gloves?
In chemical laboratories, experiment personnel often come into contact with various chemicals and have some dangerous chemical operations. Among these operations, the hands of laboratory personnel are more frequently in contact the dangerous sources than other body parts. If a safety accident occurs in the hands during the experiment, it will bring great inconvenience to their life and work. Therefore, lab gloves, laboratory gloves, or gloves for chemistry lab are an important protection guarantee, which can protect the hands from the harm of hazardous chemicals and guarantee the safety of laboratory personnel's hands.
In the laboratory, the hazards of chemicals to the hands are usually divided into the following three categories.
First, chemicals that are irritating or corrosive. They can cause damage through direct or indirect contact with the hands. For example, if laboratory personnel are often in contact with strong acids or strong bases, their hands will result in skin corrosion and cause severe pain whereas acid mist of hydrofluoric acid will irritate the hands and lead to dermatitis and other symptoms.
Second, chemical burns to the hand after high temperature. For example, high-temperature calcination of magnesium oxide is easy to burn the hands when being taken out.
Third, low-temperature chemicals frostbite the hands. For example, when having operations with chemicals like liquid nitrogen or dry ice, improper protection is easy to frostbite hands.
The science lab gloves come in different materials such as natural latex rubber, nitrile, neoprene, polyethylene, polychloroprene, PVC, etc. They are made up of using only one material or combination but differ in glove thickness and style. Usually, they can be subdivided into reusable lab gloves and disposable lab gloves as well as long lab gloves and normal lab gloves.
Although vinyl lab gloves are included in the disposable gloves, they offer limited protection against pathogens and contaminants. Therefore, it is not suggested to use it in laboratory environments. At the same time, the oven gloves lab is not suitable to use in the laboratories too.
In the laboratory, the most common laboratory hand gloves are mainly referred to in the following categories.
Latex gloves laboratory
The rubber gloves for laboratory are generally made of natural rubber collected from rubber trees. The main component of these gloves, which are elastic solids after solidification and drying processes, is polyisoprene. The latex lab gloves have good chemical resistance to general chemicals. They are suitable for low concentrations of acids and bases, aldehydes and ketones, or other compounds. This kind of lab safety gloves can also be operated continuously in low concentrations of acid and base solutions. Their resistance to abrasion and puncture is good.
Nitrile gloves for laboratory use
The main materials of
nitrile lab gloves are acrylonitrile and butadiene as well as rubber.
Laboratory nitrile gloves have better chemical resistance and mechanical strength, abrasion resistance, and puncture resistance. At the same time,
nitrile gloves for chemistry lab do not contain protein allergens and thus have a low allergic irritation reaction to human skin.
Lab safety supply neoprene gloves
The neoprene lab gloves are mainly produced from chloroprene emulsion polymerization. They have good resistance to oxidation and hydrocarbon solvent swelling as well as good chemical resistance, physical strength, and aging resistance. However, they are more expensive due to the scarcity of raw materials and the complexity of the process.
Lab box with gloves
During chemical experiments, harmful gases may often be released, seriously endangering the health of experimenters and the atmosphere. Generally, by using the installation of ventilation cabinets and other exhaust devices, the operator can avoid as much as possible the inhalation of harmful gases when operating in a laboratory. However, if teachers want to conduct chemistry demonstration experiments in the classroom, then the harmful gases produced will have to escape into the classroom space, which will cause pollution of the classroom air and thus affect the health of teachers and students. In addition, the current ventilation devices only have the function of ventilation. These devices can not completely avoid harm to the human body. These devices also fail to purify against harmful gases, which could not allow them to be discharged directly outdoors and make them become a source of pollution to the air environment. In response to the above-mentioned shortcomings of the existing technology, the laboratory glove box, a gas purification glove box for chemical experiments, provides a solution to avoid human injury and pollution of the environment.
Function of laboratory gloves
In the laboratory, the experimenter will inevitably come into contact with a variety of corrosive and other harmful substances when conducting various tests, so the laboratory is a place that requires perfect protection and always needs to wear protective clothing, protective glasses ......
Science lab gloves, as general personal protective equipment, have good abrasion and cut resistance performance. Their main function is to protect the hands of laboratory personnel effectively when exposed to chemical solvents.
Generally, disposable gloves are used more frequently in the laboratory than
reusable gloves for laboratory. However, not all disposable gloves can be used in the laboratory. They need to meet the following requirements.
1) Isolation protectionIn various experiments, the experimenters need to contact different live animals or reagents, such as dissecting mice, culturing a variety of bacterial organisms, mixing the required reagents, etc. In the process of these operations, their hand safety needs to be protected by disposable gloves with superior isolation properties.
2) Chemical corrosion resistanceIn laboratories, especially chemical laboratories, many chemical reagents have a certain degree of corrosiveness, which may cause skin irritation. Therefore, the
laboratory safety gloves must be able to have corrosion resistance to protect personal safety. It is not recommended to use PVC, latex, or PE gloves in chemical laboratories but nitrile gloves.
3) Puncture-resistant and tear-resistant There is a lot of glassware in the laboratory. When assembling or disassembling glass instruments, it is easy to cut the hands if the vessels are broken. Wearing a pair of puncture-resistant and tear-resistant protective gloves to avoid being scratched when handling fragmented glass.
4) Ensure the dexterity and sensitivity of the handsExperimenters are often in contact with a variety of precision and fine instruments. If they cannot ensure the sensitivity and dexterity of their hands, it will affect the efficiency of the experiment and even lead to large errors in the experimental results. When choosing
lab hand gloves, you need to choose disposable gloves that are better fitting, thinner, and more comfortable.
5) Strong gripping strengthIt is not easy to grip glassware and most experimental equipment for their smooth surfaces. Gloves with a good grip can prevent instruments from slipping off and causing unnecessary damage or injury to personnel.
1) There are several different laboratory gloves according to their usage and types. Laboratory personnel must know the types and materials of gloves in order to correctly select the right gloves according to their working situations in order to protect their hands effectively.
2) The main use of gloves is protection, so it is important to choose hand gloves for laboratory use with sufficient protection. In addition to choosing the right material gloves, it is significant to have a pre-use inspection which requires gloves for lab work that cannot have any holes, broken, or corroded.
3) To avoid contamination, lab safety supply gloves that have been used or even contaminated must be put away separately, as most gloves for lab use are exposed to chemicals or other hazardous materials.
4) Use the correct method to remove and dispose of gloves for science lab to avoid secondary contamination of the gloves with harmful substances on yourself or other people's skin and clothing.
5) Rubber gloves should be worn even when not performing aseptic operations, as these gloves offer a high level of protection against pharmaceuticals.
6) Pay attention to the selection of the appropriate disinfection method, because the use of ethylene oxide will have an impact on the gloves.
7) Do not share gloves with others, because the interior of the glove is a breeding ground for bacteria and microorganisms, sharing gloves can easily cause cross-infection.
8) If there is a wound on the hand, make sure to cover the wound before wearing protective gloves to prevent infection.
9) Pay attention to the application environment of hand gloves for chemistry lab. If a pair of chemistry lab safety gloves are used in different experiments, it will not only affect the protection effect but also reduce the service life of the gloves.
10) There are different colors for hand gloves for lab, such as green lab gloves, blue lab gloves, black lab gloves, etc.
11) Heat resistant gloves for laboratory. Thermal gloves (laboratory) are special anti-high temperature gloves used in high-temperature environments. Experimenters can choose different high-temperature resistant gloves according to the temperature of hand touching. Lab gloves chemical resistance is the basic requirement for gloves in chemistry lab.
How to buy laboratory gloves?
ANTITECK provide lab equipment, lab consumable, manufacturing equipment in life sciences sector. If you are interested in our laboratory gloves or have any questions, please write an e-mail to info@antiteck.com, we will reply to you as soon as possible.
