Coronavirus-Rubber gloves shortage affect anti-epidemic (Apr 2020)

1、Shortage of global medial supplies due to COVID-19

With the outbreak of the global outbreak of coronavirus, Up to now. Global Confirmed Coronavirus Cases is 2,639,722 and death 184,280 .At the same time, the global shortage of protective materials, including medical masks, medical gloves, protective clothing, and ventilators, has caused significant obstacles to the anti-epidemic work.

2、Avoid infecting COVID-19 virus by hand

Medical workers wear gloves as the first line of protection against infecting COVID-19 from patients, and they’re important to protect patients as well. 

The function of disposable protective gloves is to isolate and protect medical inspections, and is an important medical material for combating epidemic situations. There are many types of protective gloves, mainly medical examination gloves, sterile medical gloves, medical X-ray protective gloves, etc.

Medical latex products include medical gloves, latex thread or tape on medical products, medical rubber plugs, medical latex tubes, etc. 72% of medical gloves are Nitrile and latex gloves. The global annual demand for nitrile and latex gloves is more than 200 billion. Nitrile gloves have the advantages of avoiding latex allergies, good elasticity, and stable supply of raw materials. The proportion of use in the medical field has gradually increased.

3、Supply status of global main medical gloves

Learned from the Bloomberg on March 26th ,Malaysia is the largest medical glove supplier in the world currently ,Their medical glove factories are operating at half capacity due to government ordering factories to halt all manufacturing starting March 18. Even at full capacity, Malaysia’s producers won’t be able to meet the current need. Top Glove said it’s seeing orders for as many as 2.6 billion gloves weekly — double its full capacity. The company, which supplies a little more than a quarter of the world’s gloves, recently received an exemption to fully staff its production lines.

4、Common accelerators in production of medical latex products

The accelerators ZDEC (ZDC, EZ), ZDBC (BZ), ZMBT (MZ) in rubber chemicals are one of the commonly used raw materials for medical latex products.They are also the few and large quantities of rubber chemicals used in medical latex products.

1） Accelerator ZDEC ,White powder ,CAS No:14324-55-1

It is a super accelerator for natural rubber and various synthetic rubbers. It is a representative variety of zinc dithiocarbamate. It is also a general accelerator for latex. It is also used as a water-insoluble accelerator for latex and has little effect on the stability of latex. When used as the second accelerator of the Thiazole accelerator in latex, The resulting product has good aging properties. Applicable to white and brilliant products, transparent products, mainly used to manufacture medical products, tapes and self-vulcanized products, etc.

2） Accelerator ZDBC ,White powder ,CAS No:136-23-2

It is super accelerator for natural rubber, synthetic rubber and latex. Commonly used in low-temperature vulcanization mortar, the vulcanization speed is faster than ZDEC and ZDMC. The general dosage is 0.5-2 servings. The latex containing this product can be used for a week without early vulcanization, and it is a better activator of thiazole accelerator. 

3）Accelerator ZMBT ,Light yellow powder ,CAS No:155-04-4

It is Suitable for NR, IR, BR, SBR, NBR, EPDM and latex. Used in latex systems, it has mild activity and is usually used in combination with super accelerators. The critical temperature of vulcanization is relatively high (138 ℃). It is not easy to produce early vulcanization, and the vulcanization flatness is wide. Suitable for latex system with the function of adjusting the viscosity of the system.