Latex gloves are important items in people’s life and work to provide hand protection. Especially for health care workers, disposable latex gloves are necessary to avoid injures and prevent cross-contamination of germs. The quality and properties of the gloves are crucial to the protection effect.

    So what tests do latex gloves need to go through before they appear on the market?

1. Puncture-resistance

    The control of puncture-resistance is of great significance for the reasons that it is directly related to the function of gloves in blocking viruses and bacteria, and to the impact of solvents and other liquids on the hands. There are many professional puncture testing devices available that automatically test this property in a simple, fast and accurate process.

2. Pinhole rate

    Pinhole rate testing is an important indicator of the chemical resistance and other properties. Especially for medical grade examination and surgical gloves, which are mainly used to prevent infection between doctors and patients and are products involving personal safety. There are five main testing methods regarding pinhole rate detection, including water-filled detection, inflatable underwater detection, electric circuit detection, water pressure detection, electron microscopy-scanning and diffusion of fluorescent dye detection.

3. Tensile resistance

    Whether in the medical, industrial production, beauty salon, food hygiene or household cleaning, the ways to wear gloves are the same, all need to pull the entrance of the glove, and in this process, glove is in a state of stretching laterally. If the gloves are not tested strictly, it is prone to be teared and damaged. Therefore, the pulling force and tearing elongation are also the essential indicators to evaluate the properties of latex gloves.

4. Friction coefficient

    Latex gloves, especially medical latex gloves should have different requirements for friction coefficient of both inner and outer surfaces. The inner surface requires a low friction coefficient to ensure the easiness of wear and to prevent the inner surfaces from sticking together when in contact with each other. While the friction coefficient of outer surface should be higher, in order to prevent users from slipping when holding medical equipment. This property can also be tested automatically with a professional friction tester.