Neoprene gloves are used to protect the hands from contamination when working in medical, commercial, or food service settings. Even some of the finest protection supplies sometimes fail for the glamour they show and the strength they lack. But mostly in this new era, everything is all about appearance and presentation but when it comes to safety it doesn't matter how dumb it looks, as long as there is no risk of serious or fatal injuries and damages.
By the same token, they also work to protect the product being made from one's hands! In certain industries, such as microchip fabrication, it is critical that workers have no contact with the components being manufactured or assembled. Neoprene gloves are also found on recreational apparel, such as with dry suits for kayaking. Neoprene is actually the DuPont company's trade name for its brand of polychloroprene, a synthetic rubber produced by the polymerization of chloroprene.
Neoprene gloves go all the way back to the 1930 invention of neoprene by DuPont scientists. Neoprene was the first mass-produced general-purpose man-made rubber. It was originally called "DuPrene," evidently a combination of the words "polychloroprene" and "DuPont," but changed six years later at the urging of company marketers who feared that the company would not be able to control the quality of the actual end-product that reached consumers, as DuPont sold the compound to others to work into end-products. It was felt that a generic term would be more reflective of DuPont's actual role in the market.
Just as interestingly, it was a Catholic priest who most helped develop neoprene. Father Julius Arthur Nieuwland was a professor of organic chemistry at Notre Dame University who had come upon a discovery that had eluded chemists for fourteen years. Natural rubber simply takes too long to produce - a mere pound per year. It was evident that soon all the rubber plantations in the world was going to come up dry very soon! But the good father was unaware of the full import of his discovery until alerted to it by DuPont scientists who happened to have been attending a talk he was giving to fellow organic chemists, where he casually mentioned his findings on acetylene, a gas that turned out to play a crucial role in manufacturing artificial rubber.
More work was yet to be done, but a key element had been proven to work, that rubber-like qualities can be achieved. Despite changing the world as we know it, Father Nieuwland steadfastly denied all royalty payments for his many critical contributions, remaining devoted to his vows of poverty as a priest. Father Nieuwland did deign, however, to be honored by the American Chemical Society's presentation of the Nichols Medal, its highest award, as well as recognition by many other prestigious organizations.
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Article by Paul Wise. Paul often uses neoprene gloves and therefore recommends Wipermaster.com for more information and tips on safety and protection supplies.
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