Kevlar Gloves and Food Contact

There has been a lot of confusion as to whether string knit Kevlar can be used for direct food contact. As a technical safety specialist at Conney Safety, I have heard both sides of this story. Some glove manufacturers claim that Kevlar is acceptable for direct food contact while others defend that it is not appropriate. With that said, I found myself needing to go right to the source… DuPont.

The rep at DuPont I spoke with stated that the FDA allows Kevlar to be used for food contact, providing some conditions are met:

1. Type of Spun Kevlar Yarn:  DI7, KY8, and NI16 are types of “finishes” on Kevlar that are approved (providing step #2 has been met).
2. Percent of Finish:  You cannot use spun Kevlar that has more than 1% of “finish” on the glove for it to be used with direct food contact – DuPont will NOT claim any of their product sent out is below this level (even though it “might” be).

You see, DuPont puts a “finish” on their yarn before it goes out to the glove manufacturers (to be made into gloves). This “finish” is like a type of liquid lubricant. It helps make the process of spinning yarn easier. This  finish is sometimes over the 1% level, so some glove manufacturers could ”scour” off this finish (commonly use a solution to take off this residue). Scouring involves temperature, detergent and time to properly remove the finish (can be done after the glove is made). DuPont has a specific documented procedure for this, for those glove manufacturers who intend to promote Kevlar for food contact. So if a glove manufacturer makes a glove with one of the approved finishes and they can document that the finish is less than 1%, the gloves can then be used for food contact.

This is not something that DuPont currently regulates or keeps tabs on (which is unfortunate), so there is bound to be some confusion out there by both glove manufacturers and customers who purchase Kevlar. I was told that if a glove manufacturer is NOT scouring the gloves before selling these products, then they really should NOT be sold as being acceptable for food contact. 

At this point, it appears that no vendor should be promoting Kevlar gloves for direct food contact, unless they have documentation of the scouring process they use (or if their Kevlar has <1% finish) and is a type of approved finish from the list above.

If you are currently using Kevlar while directly touching food items, you might want to make sure your glove supplier is aware of these concerns.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 7:45 am and is filed under Safety Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.