What is PPE? And What is it Not?
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is probably the most visible and easily recognizable part of any laboratory safety program. Some form of PPE is required for nearly all laboratory work, and it is easy for a casual observer to notice that it is missing. A lot of time and resources tend to be devoted to ensuring that researchers select the right PPE and actually wear it, and it is essential to personal safety in the laboratory.
With all that said, however, it is important to remember that PPE is considered a "last line of defense" for your safety. In general, your PPE will only come into play after something has already gone wrong - chemicals spilling on gloves or a lab coat, shrapnel from a shattering Dewar impacting safety glasses, heavy equipment falling onto steel toed shoes, an errant laser beam filtered out by laser safety glasses. You can read more about this on the Laboratory Safety Hub under Hierarchy of Controls.
Chemical Protective Gloves
The right chemical protective gloves have literally been the difference between life and death. While dimethylmercury is an extreme example, wearing the right gloves for the chemicals that you work with can still prevent injury and illness.Â
It would be ideal if we could now present you with the definitive guide to which gloves to wear with which chemicals, but unfortunately it is more complicated than that. It turns out that every latex glove is not created equal. Differences in manufacturing procedures and thickness of the gloves can make a big difference in their resistance to chemicals. Therefore, while we can provide you with some general guidelines, the best way to know for certain which glove to use with which chemical is to refer to the manufacturer's information. Many glove manufacturers provide compatibility information for their products, and the manufacturer's information should be considered the most authoritative source.
Compiled Manufacturer's Glove Compatibility Charts
Below are links to some glove compatibility charts that we have collected over the years.
Do you have one that isn't here? Let us know so we can add it!
This resource provided by Cole-Parmer is far from complete, and you will find a lot of glove-chemical combinations that are not rated. However, it can be a good way to get an overview of which glove types tend to perform best against a given chemical when specific manufacturer information is not available.