Blue Gloves Turning Green

Manufacturer: When gloves are dipped in slip-coating (silicone/PUD blend), the glove has a green stain. Gloves should normally be blue. When gloves are not dipped in slipcoating, they are perfectly fine.  No green stain. Sometimes, the slip coating does not make the gloves have a green stain, and sometimes it does.

Any thoughts?


John Woon (Senior Latex Consultant): Under normal circumstances, both silicone and PU dispersions on their own should not affect the colour of the gloves. I therefore suspect other ingredients or additives (or contamination) in either silicone or PU that are the causatives agents for the change of color from blue to green.

Knowing that blue color if mixed with yellow color would give green color, I suspect the "contamination" to be either the free ions from copper or iron.

Both copper and iron ions would react with the commonly used accelerators such as the dithiocarbamates to form a metallic complex which is colored yellowish to brownish, which would in turn converts the blue color of the gloves to greenish.

To confirm this, I suggest you treat an uncompounded nitrile film (i.e. with no curatives added) with the silicone/PU coating and check the color change, if any.