Quick note on the use of Latex/Nitrile/Vinyl gloves

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bemate

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 23, 2016
Messages
72
It is not my place to try and educate you people, most of you seem to know prety well what you are doing. And having been a safety officer at my lab for quite a few years, it's very comforting to see so many of you advocate safety first.

Now, the reason I wanted to make a small note is that some of the glove use I've seen in the various videos has been poor. When using thin gloves, be it Latex, Nitrile or Vinyl, there are a few things to remember.

First, the chemical resistance indication is for a clean, uncontaminated glove. The minute you get any kind of spill on it, the resistance will likely drop, at least for some types of chemicals. With this in mind, changing gloves often is a good precaution if you are using thin gloves.

Second, sweat from the hands also degrades the chemical resistance of the glove, as mentioned above, and from what I've seen in the videos, some of these gloves stay on for extended periods of time, meaning they are most likely nowhere close to their original resistance. In my work I go through tens of pairs of gloves in a day, and one thing above all helps reducing sweat: Wash your hands well with soap and dry them before donning the gloves. This really makes tons of difference!

It might seem wasteful to change gloves all the time, but considering the risks when dealing with acids and toxic metal salts, it is a small price to pay.

To make distinction of the various gloves easier, we have a rule of thumb at my workplace: Use latex gloves if you are going to protect your sample from yourself (i.e. contamination from hands), and Nitrile if you're protecting yourself from the sample. (I work with Molecular Biology and Microbiology btw.)

Hope this is not taken as undue criticism, but I'd rather be yelled at for advicing caution and safety than for recklessness...
 
Not undue at all Bemate!

Sound safety advice is always welcome! I think I speak for many if not all with that statement. We see folks post bare handed all too often and I think the more they can see the advice to wear gloves and to wear them properly the better.

Thanks for the post!
 
Thanks for the prod, bemate. Gloves are indeed often our last line of defence.

My feeling is that just as with a seat belt in your car, if they've protected you, the normal process has already gone awry.
One should not be dipping one's hands into acid, just because there's a thin layer of nitrile separating those hands from corrosive toxins. What if it failed? And of course, just like a seat belt: if it's saved you once then it has expired and must be immediately changed.

Again, thank you. It's good to have these reminders and I'm pleased to see an advocate for personal safety.
 
Noble Metals Recovery said:
Are the black somewhat stiff military rubber gloves good for repeated use.

Would it help to rinse them frequently?
I think those are butyl rubber. Quite common. They stand up to corrosive chemicals pretty well. I don't normally use them because: (1) when wet, they are slick and a beaker can easily slip out of your hand; (2) too stiff and they never loosen up - hard to pick up something small; and (3) I sweat a lot with them. However, I always kept a pair of shoulder length black butyl gloves in case I had to fish something out of a deep solution.

I would make a habit of rinsing any glove when something gets on them. The one thing that will attack most any glove material except fluorocarbons, is concentrated sulfuric. Some gloves don't last too long with strong nitric either, especially when it's not quickly rinsed off.
 
Does it matter, really?

It was more of a simple warning, for those who dont know that nitrile is an acrylonitrile. Which contains the CN- compound, and when burned it will release it into the air.

Just a heads up, kind of thing, ya' know?...so nobody decides to roast some marshmallows over their lab burn pile.. Not trying to claim I know all, just trying to prevent some illness or loss..

...there was a local guy who split a nitric order with me. Kept getting "sick". I have not heard from him in 3 weeks now, after repeated texts. Don't know if it was because of refining, or.. But, he was smelting alot I believe, and refining pgm's in his garage.
 
Topher_osAUrus said:
...there was a local guy who split a nitric order with me. Kept getting "sick". I have not heard from him in 3 weeks now, after repeated texts. Don't know if it was because of refining, or.. But, he was smelting alot I believe, and refining pgm's in his garage.

This should make you think about how much and what you post on and the accuracy of the information you post.
 
Topher_osAUrus said:
It was more of a simple warning, for those who dont know that nitrile is an acrylonitrile. Which contains the CN- compound, and when burned it will release it into the air.

Thanks for the heads up, I had no idea about this.

Does anyone happen to know about burning "powder free" latex gloves? I have a few in a ziplock baggie with used filters waiting to be processed someday.
 
Topher_osAUrus said:
Does it matter, really?

Yes it does.
A great deal.
On the one hand you cry a lot whilst on the other hand you might die and that's a pretty big difference.
I am sure you would agree that this matters.

I second Frank's remark above.
 
Barren Realms 007 said:
Topher_osAUrus said:
...there was a local guy who split a nitric order with me. Kept getting "sick". I have not heard from him in 3 weeks now, after repeated texts. Don't know if it was because of refining, or.. But, he was smelting alot I believe, and refining pgm's in his garage.

This should make you think about how much and what you post on and the accuracy of the information you post.

Such as?

Still waiting for a reply to my pm to you...?
 
anachronism said:
Topher_osAUrus said:
Does it matter, really?

Yes it does.
A great deal.
On the one hand you cry a lot whilst on the other hand you might die and that's a pretty big difference.
I am sure you would agree that this matters.

I second Frank's remark above.

Then why do t you give it a try Jon and let us know how it turns out.

And thats coming from a guy who doubted switching acids will dissolve gold, if you dobt incinerate first...

...guess every forum has their trolls, huh.
 
Topher_osAUrus said:
It was more of a simple warning, for those who dont know that nitrile is an acrylonitrile. Which contains the CN- compound, and when burned it will release it into the air.
Under which conditions and how much? HCN in it self is flammable so I would suspect that burning nitrile gloves isn't a lot more dangerous than other plastics as long as there is ample of oxygen for the process.

Other products containing the nitrile group is Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene, or ABS-plastic. A common plastic used in electronics among other things.

HCN is all around us and can be found from bitter almond ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almond ) to cigarette smoke ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4518591/ ). About 25 times more in a bitter almond than a cigarette if you wonder.
The body can handle small amounts without harm.

As with almost any compound it is also a matter of dose, but I would recommend not breathing any smoke from incinerating plastics or anything we refine.

Göran
 
The very last type gloves I would ever use are the disposable ones, whether latex of nitrile. The few times I have used them was when that was all that was available. I hate them and I don't trust them.
 
goldsilverpro said:
The very last type gloves I would ever use are the disposable ones, whether latex of nitrile. The few times I have used them was when that was all that was available. I hate them and I don't trust them.

Nick introduced me to gauntlets. Haven't looked back. I do use disposables though sometimes for particular things.
 
Thats all i meant by my original post Göran, that the smoke from the gloves is nothing to take lightly. I simply read it in an article. I know my 2 burn boxes have gloves in one and paper in another. Maybe not everyone does that.. But, after that simple warning, everything I post is called to question?

Granted I have been wrong before, and when I find out that I am wrong I take it as a learning experience.

So forgive me, Jon and Barren, for thinking that this place was an open forum where people learn from one another in their experiences and mistakes. And not a place where only the infallible are able to make posts. I know both of you have made mistakes, and posted things incorrectly before, but it seems as of late, the only things you 2 post are criticisms and low blows.
 
My wife likes to watch Dr. Phil. While I don't care for the show, he does have a couple of good phrases. One of them is "Take the high road. There's a lot less traffic up there."

Let's get back to helping each other.

Dave
 
anachronism said:
goldsilverpro said:
The very last type gloves I would ever use are the disposable ones, whether latex of nitrile. The few times I have used them was when that was all that was available. I hate them and I don't trust them.

Nick introduced me to gauntlets. Haven't looked back. I do use disposables though sometimes for particular things.
Same here. Mine look like green washing-up gloves, but are heavier nitrile. I try to keep them clean as if they were my own hands.
 
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