Skin exposure to VOCs and plasticizers through chemical protective gloves

• Main Authors: Chung-Ying Wei, 魏仲瑩
• Other Authors: 趙克平
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/74309158422920568559

碩士 === 中國醫藥大學 === 職業安全衛生學系碩士班 === 98 === The workers with skin exposure to organic solvents are protected extensively by chemical protective gloves made from polymers. The choice of gloves is emphasized by resistance to permeation. After contacting with chemical, the residue in the gloves will be continually desorbed. Besides, plasticizers, especially phthalate esters, added in the polymeric gloves will release with time and use. The aim of this study is to investigate the desorption of organic solvent and dissolution of plasticizers in the chemical protective gloves, and to assess the health risk of chemical and plasticizers. In this study, the gloves, such as neoprene, nitrile, and PVC, were permeated by fifteen solvents using ASTM F739 permeation cell. Methanol was used as the collection medium. In the desorption experiment, even without contacting chemical, the residual chemical was continually desorbed from the contaminated glove samples after permeation experiment. The chemical concentrations were linearly increased and then maintained constant. It is speculated that the residual chemical was completely desorbed from glove samples. Based on the solubility parameter theory, the smaller discrepancy of solubility parameters between chemical and glove, the more chemical permeated into gloves samples; then more residual chemical was desorbed. This study was demonstrated that residual chemical in the contaminated gloves was absorbed after gloves contact chemical for a while. The desorption of chemical lead to a significant threat to workers using contaminated gloves. It is suggested that workers should take off the contaminated gloves immediately after working, and utilize appropriate decontaminated method before using the contaminated gloves. In the present study, DEHP was analyzed in the collection medium, and increase with permeation time for permeation and desorption experiments. The carcinogenic risk of DEHP is as higher as 10-5. However, there will be potential carcinogenic risk for workers exposure to DEHP through chemical protective gloves.