Evaluating polymer degradation with complex mixtures using a simplified surface area method.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Occupational Safety and Health
• Polymer Chemistry

Background:

• Chemical-resistant gloves are crucial for worker protection against hazardous chemicals.
• Selecting appropriate polymer materials for gloves is critical due to varying chemical resistance.
• Current degradation testing methods (e.g., weight change) can be costly and lack data for complex mixtures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an inexpensive alternative method for assessing polymer degradation in chemical-resistant gloves.
• To evaluate the efficacy of using surface area change as a metric for polymer degradation.
• To establish a correlation between surface area change and traditional weight change measurements.

Main Methods:

• Conducted degradation tests on 5 polymer types exposed to 50 complex chemical mixtures.
• Utilized both gravimetric analysis (weight change) and a novel surface area change method.
• Compared percent change data between the two methods to establish correlation.

Main Results:

• A strong positive correlation (r = 0.9537, p ≤ 0.05) was found between percent weight change and percent surface area change.
• The regression analysis yielded the equation y = 0.48x + 0.019, indicating a predictable relationship.
• On average, the percent change in surface area was approximately half the percent change in weight.

Conclusions:

• Surface area change provides a reliable and cost-effective alternative to gravimetric analysis for evaluating polymer degradation.
• The study successfully developed an equivalent rating system for polymer glove chemical degradation based on surface area.
• This method expands the availability of chemical resistance data for a wider range of industrial chemicals.