Folpet permeation through nitrile gloves.

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health and Safety
• Analytical Chemistry
• Materials Science

Background:

• Nitrile gloves are commonly used for chemical protection.
• Folpet is a fungicide found in wettable powder formulations.
• Assessing glove permeation is critical for worker safety.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the protective efficacy of two nitrile glove brands against Folpet.
• To compare the permeation rates of Folpet through different nitrile glove types.
• To develop and utilize a sensitive analytical method for Folpet detection.

Main Methods:

• Utilized an ASTM type-I-PTC 600 permeation cell at 30°C.
• Developed a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and gas chromatography-electron capture detection (GC-ECD) method.
• Employed a novel pyrolysis GC-ECD technique to quantify phthalimide, a Folpet degradation product.

Main Results:

• Sol-Vex nitrile gloves showed significantly lower Folpet permeation rates (2.04 ng/cm²/min after 8 hours) compared to SafeSkin nitrile gloves (42.1 ng/cm²/min).
• Sol-Vex gloves were approximately 21 times more protective than SafeSkin gloves.
• Infrared reflectance spectroscopy indicated minimal changes in Sol-Vex gloves, confirming high chemical resistance.

Conclusions:

• Sol-Vex industrial chemical-resistant nitrile gloves offer substantial protection against aqueous Folpet emulsions.
• SafeSkin exam-type nitrile gloves demonstrated considerably higher Folpet permeation.
• The developed pyrolysis GC-ECD method is highly sensitive for detecting trace Folpet permeation.