There are two ways that chemicals can get through your safety gloves and reach your skin: degradation and permeation.
Degradation is the physical deterioration of the glove material when it comes in contact with a chemical. Degradation causes visible damage, like swelling, melting, cracking, weakening, or becoming brittle.
Permeation is an invisible process that occurs at the molecular level when chemical molecules are able to break through the glove material’s barrier without causing visible physical changes.
At RX-Safety, our line of chemical-resistant safety gloves is rated by breakthrough time, a measurement that indicates the precise number of minutes for which you can safely work with a chemical before it reaches your skin.
We can’t overstate the importance of matching your glove’s performance rating to the exact concentration of the chemicals you’re working with.
