Modern and innovative, that's what protective gloves are today. There is a suitable protective glove for many applications, including against mechanical and chemical risks. There is constant development and there are always new innovations that make gloves better protective, more comfortable and more economically interesting.
ESD gloves with special fibres
Assembly gloves based on synthetic materials can become electrically charged. This may lead to a visible or invisible electrical discharge. The special feature of ESD gloves is that an electrical charge of the glove can be dissipated (an additional property). For this purpose, a dissipative material is incorporated as a special fibre, e.g. graphite, carbon or copper, during the production of an ESD glove. In sensitive areas in the electronics industry, the discharge of charge is important for product protection. This special feature of the glove thus ensures the integrity of the object. Spark flashover is prevented if the user ensures the earthing chain (possibly also by taking additional measures).
The DIN EN 613405-1 standard, which applies to safety shoes and workwear, cannot be applied to protective gloves, and therefore no standard-based marking for ESD gloves. If a glove is marked with the ESD mark, it has been tested according to DIN EN 16350:2014 and can therefore be used without hesitation in areas where ESD product protection is required.
Innovative touchscreen protective gloves
Touchscreen gloves are increasingly gaining their raison d'être due to the widespread use of tablets and smartphones in business processes. The protective gloves themselves protect the hands from injuries and cold like a "normal" category 2 glove and also allow you to operate a smartphone or tablet without taking off the glove. Most touchscreens work on a capacitive basis.
Capacitive touchscreens have a thin, electrically conductive metal oxide layer on the surface. If you touch the touchscreen with a finger, the charge changes at the point of contact. This will address the processor and pass on the command. However, if you wear protective gloves, your fingers are not able to transmit the command due to the insulation. In touchscreen gloves, on the other hand, electrically conductive material (e.g. thin metal threads) is incorporated into the fingertips, which makes it possible to transmit the electrical impulse. As a result, the device can be operated without any problems.
Protective gloves with nano technology
The manufacturer Portwest has two innovative protective gloves in its range, which are equipped with nanotechnology. This revolutionary coating makes the gloves extremely water- and oil-repellent. The glove wearer is thus completely protected from water, oil and other liquids (but the gloves are not chemical protection gloves). In the PW Nano 6000 series, there is a winter glove with a double intermediate layer, which also protects against heat, and a fine knit glove with a high abrasion resistance for use in many different industries.
"Smart gloves"
This is a technology of the future, a "digital" development for production that goes far beyond the use of tablets and smartphones. Here, a glove is combined with a digital scanner. This scanner can, for example, read barcodes, check whether a work step has been carried out correctly and give feedback to the assembly worker about this. The extent to which this new technology has a future will be shown by the development of production technology. Such intelligent gloves would disappear again as soon as the production technology itself integrates the above-mentioned production steps, thereby making the mechanical activity of the worker through the use of robots superfluous.