The issue is not that we use gloves, but that we too often use the wrong ones.
Both in terms of safety and sustainability, we often know surprisingly little about making the right choice.
Let me therefore share some considerations to help protect both yourself and the environment:
Today's Lesson: Understanding Glove Properties
Finding the right glove for your tasks
Number of the Day
In a study by Freese et al., a biochemical research group with 17 members used approximately 43 000 gloves in a single year. That amounts to more than 6 gloves per person per day. Even assuming lower glove use in chemical laboratories, they estimated that their Faculty of Science and Engineering discarded more than 1.3 million gloves annually, resulting in approximately 9 tons of glove waste. Luckily, there are a few things we can do to reduce this impact while enhancing safety:
43000
Choosing the Right Gloves
Given the number of gloves we use in research and the highly visible nature of plastic waste, many people are concerned about this topic.
Apart from the number of gloves used, another important factor is their thickness.
In glove thickness measurements, a mil is a unit of length equal to one-thousandth of an inch (≈ 0.0254 mm). Please note that gloves can have different thicknesses at the palm and the fingertips. On the right, you can see a general overview adapted from Gloves.com, which provides an overview of glove applications outside the lab.
A thinner glove usually means less material and therefore less waste.
Of course, safety still comes first.
That means the question is not just: How can we avoid glove use?
It's also: Which glove provides sufficient protection for this specific task without creating unnecessary waste?
There is room for improvement because, in many labs, glove use is driven more by habit than by risk assessment.
We put on the same nitrile gloves for almost every task.
We rarely stop to ask whether nitrile is actually the right material, whether the glove thickness is appropriate, or whether gloves are even necessary for that particular step.
Prioritizing safety is also important from an environmental perspective, as the environmental costs associated with healthcare treatments are substantial. However, there is no need to discard and replace gloves after wearing them for only 10 seconds because you remembered that you forgot something in the office.
Glove use is a topic where sustainability and safety really harmonize.
Therefore, here is how I would approach the topic to balance sustainability and safety:
The Two Questions That Matter
When deciding which gloves to use, two factors are especially important:
How resistant is the glove material to the chemicals you use?
What is the actual contact risk in your workflow?
Key metrics here are permeation time and permeation rate, which tell us how quickly and how much of a chemical diffuses through a glove.
Breakthrough time indicates when the first detectable amount of a chemical appears on the inside of a glove. Permeation rate indicates how much of the chemical passes through the glove after breakthrough has occurred. This graphic is adapted from Nelson & Phalen. A clear and instructive explanation can also be found in The Synergist.
These metrics vary depending on both glove material and thickness.
In short, I would argue that, from a safety perspective, we cannot simply say that “thicker is always better.”
To understand why, we need to look at what proper glove selection might actually involve.
Question 1: Is it the Right Glove Material?
Different glove materials protect against different chemicals - we discussed some common materials earlier.
Most labs use nitrile gloves. Indeed, they strike a reasonable balance between performance and sustainability.
Nitrile also provides decent protection against oils, fuels, some organic solvents, and weak acids.
However, nitrile is not suitable for everything.
Please consult chemical resistance tables, in which glove manufacturers report the resistance of their gloves to various chemicals. These tables are available from manufacturers such as Kimberly-Clark and Ansell, VWR, as well as from your Health and Safety Department (sometimes also publications). However, as discussed later, these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.
For example, nitrile gloves can perform poorly when exposed to alcohols, ketones, halogenated hydrocarbons, aromatic hydrocarbons, esters, ethers, amines, and concentrated acids.
That is quite a list, isn't it?
This means that chemicals such as phenol, methanol, ethyl acetate, DMF, acetone, chloroform, xylene, and concentrated acids require special attention.
In some cases, the permeation time may be only a few minutes. In others, it may be less than 60 seconds.
This means the glove may appear intact while the chemical is already passing through it.
This is especially relevant for workflows such as phenol–chloroform extractions. These are common in some laboratories, but nitrile gloves only provide limited protection against these chemicals.
Depending on the chemical and the workflow, dedicated chemical-protection gloves made from materials such as natural rubber or neoprene may be more appropriate.
Question 2: What Is the Contact Risk?
However, if a glove provides resistance for only a few minutes, should you still use it?
The reality is that while dedicated chemical-protection gloves may offer better protection, they are often so cumbersome that even simple tasks, such as opening a tube, become difficult.
You can imagine that working in these gloves is a pain if you’d need to pipette into a 1.5mL tube.
Therefore, I would argue that the second factor to consider is how your experiment is organized.
What volume are you handling?
How likely is a splash or spill?
Could contamination go unnoticed?
Can you stop the process immediately and change gloves if necessary?
For example, imagine that you use a solution containing DMSO in one step of an experiment.
You pipette 10 microliters into another tube.
In this case, the risk of skin contact is relatively low. The volume is small, the transfer is controlled, and if something goes wrong, you can usually stop and replace the glove immediately.
Let's be honest: it happens that you end up with a drop of liquid on your gloves, especially after inverting and mixing your tubes or flasks. However, this poses a safety risk, so please pay attention to such incidents. It may be annoying, but taking a moment to address them helps keep both you and the environment safe.
Now compare this with using DMSO (or THF etc.) as a solvent in a synthesis.
You may handle milliliters of liquid, work through multiple steps, and possibly pour the solvent from one container into another.
In this scenario, the likelihood of contact is much higher. A spill may be larger, harder to notice immediately, and more difficult to respond to quickly.
For the first task, a standard nitrile glove may be appropriate, provided that you work carefully and replace it immediately if contamination occurs.
For the second task, a much thicker glove or a dedicated chemical-protection glove may be necessary, especially because DMSO can permeate some disposable gloves very quickly.
Thickness Helps - But Only Up to a Point
Obviously, a thicker glove often provides better protection, but to what extent does that actually matter?
For example, using a thicker nitrile glove will not significantly improve protection against harsh acids.
And even for chemicals with breakthrough times in the minutes, simply going thicker is not always a convincing solution.
For example, increasing glove thickness from 4 mil to 5 or 6 mil increases the thickness by 25–50%. Although Fickian diffusion predicts that diffusion time scales approximately with the square of thickness, the resulting increase in breakthrough time may still amount to only a few minutes.
If you want to see a substantial improvement, you would likely need to move from a 4-mil glove to an 8-mil glove.
The greatest benefit of thicker gloves is often their improved mechanical resistance.
However, the downside is that thicker gloves reduce dexterity, tactile sensitivity, and overall ease of handling.
Additionally, you have to account for uncertainties.
The Limits of Glove Data
One challenge is that gloves are not used under ideal laboratory testing conditions.
Real-world use involves stretching, friction, and elevated temperatures due to body heat.
One study suggests that these factors can reduce glove performance by 20–40% on average after only 30 minutes of use.
Moreover, mixtures of chemicals can behave differently from individual substances, sometimes increasing permeation beyond what would be expected from either chemical alone.
Chao et al. investigated the extent to which mixtures of chemicals affect breakthrough times and permeation rates.
However, permeation data is overall much scarcer than one might expect.
Some manufacturers provide useful compatibility charts, but peer-reviewed data are often limited to a few selected chemicals.
Furthermore, for some chemicals, different sources report substantially different breakthrough times.
It is understandable that methodological differences may lead to variations. However, manufacturers may also prefer to avoid taking risks and may therefore underreport these numbers compared with academic publications. These data sheets are from Kimberly-Clark.
Xylene, phenol, and chloroform are good examples where reported values can vary considerably.
This is why we should be cautious about relying on a single number from a single compatibility guide.
What This Means for Sustainable Glove Use
Safety comes first. It is your responsibility. But here is my personal take:
Use the thinnest glove made from an appropriate material that still provides adequate protection.
The reason is simple: this is often the most sustainable option and, in many cases, may also be the best choice for your health.
Please remember that choosing the right glove type is important. Moreover, as shown by Phalen et al., the longer gloves are worn, the less resistant they may become. Some recommend selecting gloves with a breakthrough time at least three times longer than the expected duration of exposure. Ultimately, the choice is yours.
For nitrile gloves, that would probably be around 4 mil.
If contamination occurs with a chemical that has a breakthrough time of less than 25 minutes, remove and replace the gloves as soon as possible.
Thinner gloves offer better dexterity, which can reduce fatigue and help prevent mistakes. At the same time, increasing glove thickness by 20% adds noticeably to material consumption while often providing only a modest increase in protection.
Do not take risks with your health - but also do not assume you are safe simply because your glove is slightly thicker.
Applying the Knowledge
Do not assume that "lab gloves" are automatically protective. Always check whether the glove material is suitable for the chemicals you are using.
Ask yourself a few questions that are often overlooked:
Would I notice contamination immediately?
Can I stop the process and change gloves immediately?
How long will I be wearing the gloves?
The goal is not to make glove use complicated.
The goal is to make it conscious.
Working with concentrated sulfuric acid - Nitrile gloves are not the right choice at all.
Running a Western blot - You can probably wear the same pair of gloves throughout the procedure.
Spill ethanol on your glove - Replace it after completing the immediate step. Ethanol has a relatively short breakthrough time, but brief skin exposure is generally not a major concern.
Spill hexane or acetonitrile (ACN) - Replace your gloves as soon as possible.
My opinion: use the thinnest glove that provides appropriate protection. Replace gloves promptly after contamination with chemicals that have short breakthrough times.
Only consider thicker gloves when working with chemicals that have breakthrough times measured in minutes and when the process cannot be interrupted immediately.
That said, this is ultimately a risk assessment that each person must make for themselves and come to their own conclusions.
How We Feel Today
References
Freese, T., et al., 2024. The relevance of sustainable laboratory practices. RSC Sustainability, 2(5), pp.1300–1336. doi:10.1039/D4SU00056K.
Schwope, A.D., et al., 1981. Dimethyl sulfoxide permeation through glove materials. American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal, 42(10), pp.722–725. doi:10.1080/15298668191420594.
Chao, K.P., et al., 2008. Permeation of aromatic solvent mixtures through nitrile protective gloves. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 153(3), pp.1059–1066. doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2007.09.059.
Brown, B.C., et al., 2020. Chemical permeation of similar disposable nitrile gloves exposed to volatile organic compounds with different polarities: Part 1: Product variation. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, 17(4), pp.165–171. doi:10.1080/15459624.2020.1721510.
Perkins, J.L., et al., 1997. Batch lot variability in permeation through nitrile gloves. American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal, 58(7), pp.474–479. doi:10.1080/15428119791012568.
Phalen, R.N., et al., 2014. Changes in chemical permeation of disposable latex, nitrile, and vinyl gloves exposed to simulated movement. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, 11(11), pp.716–721. doi:10.1080/15459624.2014.908259.
Perkins, J.L., et al., 1997. The effect of glove flexure on permeation parameters. Applied Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, 12(3), pp.206–210. doi:10.1080/1047322X.1997.10389489.
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Edited by Patrick Penndorf Connection@ReAdvance.com Lutherstraße 159, 07743, Jena, Thuringia, Germany Data Protection & Impressum If you think we do a bad job: Unsubscribe
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