Protecting hands – Categories and markings of gloves for work

The hand is a true workhorse, as it is our most important tool for almost all work. Yet it is an anatomical marvel: the human hand consists of 27 bones and thus has a quarter of the bones in the human body. It contains 33 muscles and 3 nerves as well as four vascular nerve bundles per finger, which are responsible for its functioning. In addition, each palm has 17,000 tactile corpuscles.

Anyone who has cut their fingertip on paper or got a splinter (no matter how small!) in the palm of their hand while gardening will realise how incredibly often we use our hands and fingers and how much even minor injuries to the hand can restrict our everyday life.

Properties of hand protection

Hand protection is essential for many reasons. The protection seeker is offered an overwhelming variety – depending on the area of application, material, surface, gripping properties… The first question in the search for the right glove must be: Should the hand be protected from the material or the material from the hand?

General requirements for hand protection: The EN 420 standard

34% of all reportable occupational accidents involve the hand, according to DGUV statistics (2018). Hand injuries thus clearly lead the field of occupational accidents (ankle and foot injuries follow in second place with only 18.4%). Protective gloves are therefore mandatory for many occupational groups and are an essential component of personal protective equipment (PPE) (for more information on PPE, see the article on work clothing and protective clothing).

• Manufacturer
• Article name
• Size designation
• CE marking
• Pictogram (from CE category II)
• Expiry date (if required)

If the labelling cannot be applied directly to the protective glove, it must be printed on the packaging.
In addition, there are pictograms that show which risks the glove protects against. However, this labelling of protective gloves may only be applied if the glove fulfils the minimum requirements of the specified standard. The standard clarifies the test procedures that the respective glove must undergo in order to enable the user to make comparisons.

Protective glove categories – these types are distinguished

Depending on the type of external influence against which the hands are primarily to be protected, the hand protection is tested according to a specific standard and labelled accordingly:

• Protection against mechanical risks such as abrasion or cuts (protective gloves with the marking according to EN 388)
• Protection against thermal risks such as high heat and fire (protective gloves with the marking according to EN 407)
• Protection against cold (protective gloves marked according to EN 511)
• Protection against chemical risks, e.g. when handling chemicals or micro-organisms (protective gloves with the marking according to EN 374)

Hand protection against mechanical risks – EN 388

All gloves that bear this mark comply with EN Standard 388 and protect against mechanical influences. Here too, there are still enormous differences, which are documented and categorised in elaborate test procedures. The following properties are tested:

• Abrasion resistance: 0 = low to 4 = very high
• Cut resistance coup test: 0 = low to 5 = very high
  In the coup test, a rotating circular knife moves back and forth on the specimen with a low force of 5 Newtons and rotates in the opposite direction to the movement. The number of cycles in which the sample is cut is determined.
• Tear resistance: 0 = low to 4 = very high
  Means: Is there already damage to the material?
  For example, if there is already a cut: how quickly does the material tear further at this point?
• Puncture resistance: 0 = low to 5 = very high
• Cut resistance according to ISO: A = low to F = very high
  The coup test was extended to take into account the blunting effect of the test blade. If the blade blunts in the coup test, the test procedure according to ISO 13997 must be carried out and the cut resistance is indicated in the fifth position in the pictogram. The coup test result can then be indicated optionally. If the blade does not blunt, the coup test procedure is relevant and the test according to ISO 13997 can be performed optionally.
• Protection against impact (P)
  The test procedure according to EN13594:2015 can optionally be carried out to show protection against impacts. If the glove passes the so-called pass or fail test, a P for pass is shown below the pictogram after the fifth digit. If the glove fails, it is not marked.

If you find an X instead of a number in the marking, this means that there is no test value for the glove for this particular requirement.

The five-digit marking under the symbol thus provides information about the specific requirements for which the glove has the best protective properties. The coarser the influences against which the glove is to protect the wearer, the “stronger” the material must be. If, however, dexterity is more in demand, the material is also rather “finer” and thus the cut and puncture resistance is usually lower.

Hand protection against thermal risks – EN 407

If the hands are exposed to high heat during work, the gloves must be tested and labelled according to EN 407. Similar to the mechanical risks, the protective glove is tested for various properties during the test procedure and marked with numbers from 0 to 4 (or from 0 to 3). Here too, an x instead of a number means that no measurement results are (yet) available for this particular property:

• Burning behaviour (0 low to 4 high)
• Contact heat (0 low to 4 high)
• Convective heat (0 low to 4 high)
• Radiant heat (0 low to 4 high)
• Exposure to small splinters of molten metal (0 low to 4 high)
• Exposure to large amounts of molten metal (0 low to 4 high)

Hand protection against cold – EN 511

Anyone who has ever forgotten their gloves in sub-zero temperatures knows this from personal experience: cold hands become stiff and lose their dexterity. At work, this means that tools or materials can no longer be used safely. Cold protection gloves bear the pictogram “cold risk” and thus comply with EN 511. Gloves classified in this way are tested with regard to their thermal insulation capacity in case of penetrating cold (=convection cold) and in case of contact cold, i.e. direct contact with cold objects, up to -50°C. In contrast to others, the pictogram is only provided with a three-digit numerical code. The following test criteria are therefore used for cold protection gloves (again, the better the test result, the higher the digit):

• Convection cold resistance (0 to 4)
• Contact cold resistance (0 to 4)
• Water resistance (0 or 1)
  The test for water resistance is voluntary. If the glove is marked 1, no water penetrated during the test after 30 minutes.