Permeation of a straight oil metalworking fluid through disposable nitrile, chloroprene, vinyl, and latex gloves

The aim was to investigate the permeation of a straight oil metalworking fluid (MWF) through four types of glove materials using the gravimetric method and the modified American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) F739-99a method with perfluorohexane and hexane as collection solvents. The residual masses on the collection side were determined after solvent evaporation for both MWF and blank (air) challenges. With perfluorohexane, the permeated MWF through gloves after 8 h was around the lower quantifiable limit for nitrile, 0.7 ± 0.2 mg/cm2 for vinyl, 10.0 ± 1.2 mg/cm2 for chloroprene, and 33.0 ± 0.7 mg/cm2 for latex. Hexane increased the amounts and rates of MWF permeating all gloves 39-73 times, except for vinyl where extractable mass was so high that the residues for MWF challenges and for hexane blanks were indistinguishable. Hexane as a collection solvent also extracted more glove components than did perfluorohexane, and back-permeated gloves in much larger amounts. Perfluorohexane allows better estimates of the real permeation rates and breakthrough times than does hexane. Recommendations based on breakthrough times and permeation rates with hexane collection are thus too conservative, although the relative ranking of these four types of gloves was the same with either collection solvent.