Selection and testing of a glove combination for use with the U.S. Coast Guard's chemical response suit.

A study was sponsored by the U.S. Coast Guard to select a glove system for its chemical response suit that could meet or exceed the chemical resistance performance of the suit's base material. Three different protective glove combinations were evaluated for their permeation resistance to 28 chemicals. The glove combinations were based on three materials--Viton, butyl rubber, and Silvershield. The test chemicals were selected for one of two reasons. First, no single glove material could be identified to be resistant against the chemical of interest, or second, no permeation test data were available for judging glove material performance for the specific chemical. As can be expected, the permeation resistance of the glove combinations greatly exceeded that of the single glove material components. The butyl rubber/Silvershield glove combination was found to provide permeation resistance greater than 1 hr for all but one of the chemicals tested.