Method for the evaluation of the permeation characteristics of protective glove materials

A method is described to evaluate the permeation characteristics of glove materials by chemical solvents. The collecting medium (helium) is continuously monitored by a flame ionization detector (FID) of a gas chromatograph (GC). Immediately following a steady-state condition, quantitative data are acquired on-line by a computer. A two-position GC sampling valve and computer-controlled data acquisition and analysis require minimal operator attention. For the 8 materials and 6 solvents investigated, thickness-normalized breakthrough times and steady-state permeation rates ranged from 9.10 min/mil to greater than 4 hr/mil and from 0.2048 to 9112 micrograms/min/cm2/mil, respectively. A modification of the procedure which allowed the determination of the effect of temperature on permeation for 4 glove/solvent pairs was evaluated also.