Chemical protective clothing as part of PPE

One of the central elements in the world of work is occupational health and safety. After all, safe working conditions form the basis for a functioning company. In Germany, occupational health and safety is regulated in the Occupational Health and Safety Act (ArbSchG). This obliges the employer to assess health hazards at the workplace, to decide on the necessary protective measures and then to ensure occupational safety accordingly. The Act is given concrete form by a whole series of occupational health and safety ordinances. These range from the safe design of workplaces and workstations, the safe use of work equipment, noise protection, occupational health precautions to the handling of hazardous substances.

Categories of PPE

Personal protective equipment (PPE) is part of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. It is explicitly regulated in the PPE Use Ordinance (PSA-BV) and its use must be made possible by the employer. PPE includes all equipment and facilities that protect against acute injuries or occupational diseases. In the PPE Ordinance and the European Directive 89/686/EEC, all work equipment is classified into three PPE categories, which are based on the expected severity of injury:

Category I

Protective equipment in this category is primarily intended to protect against minor hazards. This category includes, for example, simple protective clothing such as disposable coveralls. These include:

Mechanical injuries that occur superficially (e.g. gardening gloves against cuts).
Contact with hot objects (e.g. apron against hot cooking surface)
Contact with slightly aggressive cleaning agents (e.g. protective gloves against acidic agents)
Damage to eyesight due to weather conditions of a non-extreme nature (e.g. sunglasses against solar radiation)

Category II

Primarily intended to protect against mechanical injury and to ward off hazards: Safety shoes, helmets and hearing protection belong in this category. Protective equipment that is custom-made and adapted to individual persons also belongs in category II.

Kategorie III

Protective equipment that falls under category III is intended to protect against deadly sources of danger and irreversible damage to health that can only be assessed with difficulty or not at all by the persons concerned themselves. These include, among others, hazards caused by:

ionising radiation,
a particularly hot environment (100 °C or more),
a particularly cold environment (-50°C or less),
falling from a great height,
electric shocks,
cutting injuries from chainsaws,
harmful noise,
projectiles,
biological and chemical hazards
lack of oxygen.

Many European directives stipulate that products must bear the CE marking. This marking declares to the authorities that the product complies with all applicable European regulations and has undergone the prescribed conformity assessment procedures.

Our article on the topic of workwear and protective clothing provides even more information on the subject.

Chemical protective clothing

In the field of chemical protective clothing, the European Union has defined 6 types of protection grades. In order to be allowed to carry the CE mark at all, minimum requirements regarding the physical and chemical material properties must be fulfilled and correctly labelled, as well as provided with the corresponding information. The various types of clothing are subject to different DIN standards that define and regulate their respective functions.

According to DIN EN standard 14605 for protective clothing against liquid chemicals, a distinction is made between two types:

Type 1

gas-tight chemical protective clothing (if breathing air has to be supplied, they are also subdivided into subcategories once again)

Type 2

non-gas-tight chemical protective clothing. (Both type 1 and type 2 are assessed in accordance with DIN 943 – 1)

Type 3

Chemical protective suits with liquid-tight connections between parts of the clothing or liquid-tight chemical protective clothing. However, this also includes protective clothing that only protects parts of the body from liquids

Type 4

Spray-tight chemical protective clothing or protective clothing that protects only parts of the body against liquid chemicals.

Type 5

Protection against suspended particles of solid chemicals, particle-tight protective clothing (according to DIN EN 13982-1).

Type 6

Limited spray-tight protective suits: reusable chemical protective clothing with limited duration of use and with limited protective performance. They provide protection against the effects of liquid aerosols, spray and light splashes (in accordance with DIN EN 13034).