Manufacture Protective Gloves

From rubber tree to protective glove

Protective gloves are available in many different types for different applications.

For CMR gloves, natural rubber (latex) products are the standard. Latex gloves are ideally suited to the application as they provide a high level of protection against chemicals, CMR drugs and micro-organisms, whilst still allowing dexterity for fine handling.

Latex allergy - no thanks!

The latex allergy (allergy type I) that became known in the 1990s is mainly due to the latex proteins that are released in large quantities when gloves are put on and taken off. At that time, gloves were powdered with maize flour. Berner protective gloves made of natural latex, on the other hand, are manufactured with a particularly low protein content and, of course, are supplied powder-free.

How are Berner gloves made?

Latex, or natural rubber, came to Europe from South America in the 15th century as a booty of the Spanish conquerors. For a long time, nobody saw the great potential in the sap of the Hevea brasiliensis rubber tree, until Charles Goodyear accidentally developed vulcanisation in 1839. From 1890, examination gloves were used in medicine.

Today, rubber sap is extracted on an industrial scale from plantations in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. The bark of the rubber tree is notched and small cups are used to collect the sap. The trees have to be re-notched every day, and the whole process is still done by hand. The water is then removed from the raw latex in centrifuges and the material is further processed for the production process.

The high quality of Berner chemical-resistant gloves is based on the quality of the raw material used. Constant checks ensure that the raw material is processed optimally. On the other hand, the quality of Berner protective gloves is determined by the manufacturing process. Each individual production step is constantly monitored to ensure an optimum end product.

During the production process, various chemicals must be added to the latex in order to carry out the individual process steps (e.g. the dipping process). These are substances such as mercaptobenzothiazole (MBT), thiuram or carbamate. These chemicals can cause allergies (type IV allergies) in case of prolonged contact and are often still detectable in the finished glove.

For the production of Berner chemical-resistant gloves, only special carbamates are used at this stage, as these have the lowest allergic potential. These substances are then thoroughly removed in further process steps and are no longer detectable in our end products. This can be seen in the product information for our chemical-resistant gloves.

Various washing processes before and after vulcanisation reduce the protein content as much as technically possible, as latex proteins are the main cause of the well-known Type I latex allergy.

Quality testing of chemical-resistant gloves

After thorough cleaning, Berner protective gloves are subjected to various quality tests. These range from standard tests such as the AQL leak test, through extensive material and surface tests, to numerous permeation tests for cytostatics and other CMR substances, as well as a virus penetration test in accordance with the American standard ASTM-F11671-97b. Finally, Berner protective gloves pass the type test of the German certification body as part of the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

Only when the gloves have successfully passed these numerous tests are they allowed to be packed. For sterile gloves, this is followed by the sterilisation procedure (gamma irradiation). A special sterilisation dot on the sterile packaging makes this process visible.

So the gloves have already come a long way in this process. But only now can they be called "Berner chemical-resistant gloves" - a quality product.

By the way: For allergy sufferers, we also have latex-free protective gloves of the highest quality in our range.