Are nitrile gloves good enough when working with permanganate and dichromate bleaches?

[What About Bob]

I wear nitrile gloves when developing film. Some time ago bought a box of 1000 black nitrile gloves for a really good price. Pretty soon I will be developing, for the first time, black and white transparencies. I am very excited.

At some point I will need to replace the tank lids for the stainless steel tanks. Sometimes they leak, sometimes they don't. I also have an AP plastic tank. Sometimes that tank leaks, other times it doesn't.

I located two PDF documents, each showing a chart of compatible gloves geared toward the handling of certain chemicals. One chart gave an "OK" rating while the other gave an "Excellent" rating for permanganate and dichromate but didn't specify if these ratings were for the dry chemical or when they are liquid. Would nitrile gloves be sufficient when working with potassium permanganate and potassium dichromate or would a different type of glove be recommended?

Thanks

 

[koraks]

Nitrile would be OK; the main thing is to prevent getting splashes of dichromate all over the place. It's fairly easy to prevent this if you're careful. Note that you can do the bleaching in an open tank and without having to invert it. You can dip & dunk the reel in the tank (or a suitable beaker) using a pair of pliers etc. if you're hesitant to manually handle it (while wearing gloves of course). If you do end up with a drop of dichromate-containing bleach on your hand (gloved or otherwise), don't panic and just rinse it off immediately. You'll be perfectly fine.

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

This could be a useful reference for you:

GLOVE SELECTION CHART Do you know if the glove you are using is right for the tasks you do?

 

[What About Bob]

I was thinking to place some trays on the work surface, under the tank and beaker to catch any drips and then use a little of the metabisulfite to clear the tray. The AP tank has that little twirler thingy that I never bothered with. I will try the dip and dunk.

Does doing the bleaching in an open tank or beaker count as part of the re-exposure?

Just came to me. Was it dichromate that was used in the old tray cleaner by Kodak? Would that stuff clean up plastic reels to make them not look so off-white?

Thanks, koraks.

 

[What About Bob]

This could be a useful reference for you:

GLOVE SELECTION CHART Do you know if the glove you are using is right for the tasks you do?

Thanks Raghu

Both chemicals show as a "4" rating for nitrile which is excellent. Saving this.

 

[koraks]

Does doing the bleaching in an open tank or beaker count as part of the re-exposure?

Partly, but I wouldn't rely on it. If the re-exposure is critical (I don't think it is in B&W reversal within a reasonable bandwidth), then you'll have to bleach in a closed tank.

Was it dichromate that was used in the old tray cleaner by Kodak?

Chromic acid as prepared by dichromate combined with sulfuric acid has historically been used at a massive scale to clean chemistry glassware etc. It's very effective at stripping organic matter from surfaces etc.

Your idea of containing spills in a tray and then reducing the waste will work just fine. You can also keep a spray bottle with a bisulfite solution at hand to zap any spills and reduce them in situ.

 

[Petrochemist]

This could be a useful reference for you:

GLOVE SELECTION CHART Do you know if the glove you are using is right for the tasks you do?

A nice chart, but breakthrough in under an hour is not necessarily an issue with 10 minute jobs, so a worse category still would be preferable. I find it strange they put Gasoline under aromatic hydrocarbons, it's specification limits it to 30% aromatics so it's more aliphatic.

At work (handling hydrocarbons) we used to be given latex gloves which were IMO worse than useless.
Many of the harmful components we handled basically went straight through them without any obvious sign. Acetone that we used routinely for cleaning glassware caused them to instantly disintegrate... Nitrile was a huge improvement though still not totally impervious to many of the compounds we handled regularly it still held them back for long enough to complete a typical job.

I've always felt gloves are potentially dangerous, they give the feeling that your hands are protected, making people less careful. I've known chemists put on a pair of disposable gloves at the start of their shift & leave them on for 8 hours - many things can get through in that time & not allowing the skin to breathe creates other problems.