Cleanroom Glove Packaging. Not all gloves are packed equal

Is your glove packaged in a dispenser box? Is it labeled ‘examination glove’ ?

If so, it is not suitable for a critical environment. Why? Boxed exam gloves are designed to protect the operator. Cleanroom Gloves are engineered to both protect the operator and your critical product.

 

Controlled environment gloves are flat packaged in a critical environment with the cuffs all to one end in two stacks of 50 each, double poly-bagged 100 per pack, 10 packs per case in a carton liner to ensure product integrity. Boxed gloves are not.

Over 98% of thin-wall, powder-free gloves are used in medical / lab / industrial applications. Operators of controlled environments often unknowingly procure a glove not designed to their application. Powder-free lab / industrial / medical grade boxed gloves are not suitable for a controlled environment because:

• Boxed gloves are powder-free, not particulate-free. Uncoated chipboard dispenser boxes shed particles, and contaminate the powder-free gloves.
• Dispenser boxes force operators to contaminate glove when donning. Operators’ bare hand should only make cuff contact.
• Additives and fillers are often used in boxed gloves which reduce ESD compatibility (surface resistivity), and negatively impact glove cleanliness.
• No post-processing to reduce surface contamination left from the dipping process

Engineered to protect your Product, Process & Operator

Valutek’s gloves are packed in double poly bags, vacuum sealed, flat packed in carton boxes and with a carton liner. All gloves are critical environment compatible, lot traceable with retention samples held in quality control for 36 months from date of manufacturing.

Vacuum seal benefit: better storage, no particulate release, no ESD issue

 

The Cleanroom’s Dirty Little Secret

Most of the time, the “protection” part of hand protection is straightforward. Gloves are designed specifically to protect the wearer’s hands from some type of injury — cuts, spills, burns, or even repetitive use injuries that only manifest over time. The challenge is as straightforward as finding the right glove for the job — balancing comfort, performance, and protection.

In cleanroom environments, however, it isn’t so simple. These are delicate ecosystems dedicated to research and manufacturing that are sensitive to even minute impurities, and 80 percent of those impurities originate from people.¹ Gloves and other personal protective equipment must limit the introduction of any particulates into the cleanroom, which means these special-use gloves are designed to protect the products as much as the wearer. Consider the potential cost of a contaminated pharmaceutical product; millions of dollars could be conservative.

With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at hand protection for cleanrooms from both perspectives — providing protection for the wearer and for the product — and how glove technologies and design practices are addressing both needs.

Click here to read full article 

IBM: What Makes This Tiny Chip a Breakthrough

IBM showed off a prototype chip today that is being hailed as a technological breakthrough for the tiny transistors — electrical switches that help power a computer — that have been made so thin they’re 1/10,000th the width of a human hair.

The breakthrough — the result of research at IBM and the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute in Albany — could allow as many as 20 billion transistors to be placed on a chip the size of a fingernail and is half the size of the current 14 nanometer standard, company officials said. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.

While the technology is a prototype chip, it could have a tremendous impact “on the anticipated demands of future cloud computing and Big Data systems, cognitive computing, mobile products and other emerging technologies,” according to the company.

Moore’s Law: What’s in Store For the Next 50 Years of Computing Power

The breakthrough chip is the result of a $3 billion investment IBM made last year in partnership with the state of New York, Samsung and other technology suppliers for the purpose of chip research and design, officials said.

Click Here to Read the Full Article.

 

Price of Rubber Pushed Up by Cartel

The Wall Street Journal produced an interesting article about the current situation of rubber production in Southeast Asia.  The cartel that controls the majority of the worlds rubber supply are clamping down on supply to increase prices.  The increase in rubber price is the direct reason for the rising cost of latex gloves, the article estimates 60% of the cost of latex gloves comes from latex prices.  Click here to view the full article.

The rising cost of latex is just one of the major reasons to make the transition to nitrile gloves.  The Nitrile 4G Ultrathin series is a series of nitrile gloves that are made with less nitrile but is comparably just as strong as other latex or nirtile gloves.  Nitrile 4G series features the standard cuff measuring 9.5” length, and the long cuff measuring 12” in length.

How are Gloves Made?

Today Valutek is bringing you a very informative and interesting video that takes you behind the scenes of glove production. Nearly 27 billion disposable gloves were sold in the United States alone, this Valutek sponsored video shows the complete process of how disposable gloves are created. The video shows the complete process that starts with the cleaning of the forms through nitric acid, nylon brushes and filtered water then ends with the final product being blown off at the finish of the dip-line. The video shows this amazing process that involves 4,800 formers and produces approximately 10,200 gloves in a single hour!

The video above is also located on the Valutek website by clicking here. If you would like to view more videos you can follow us on VodPod, follow us on Youtube, visit the Valutek website or go to gsfcc.org and watch the featured GSFCC Videos section on the main page. Also do not forget to visit the Global Society for Contamination Control (GSFCC) at Semicon West 2011 July 12-14 in San Francisco, California. The GSFCC’s booth will be located at the north Hall of the Moscone Center at booth N4.