Alternatives to nitrile gloves

[dawncruth]

During the height of the pandemic, I had a hard time getting M-sized gloves. This circumstance coupled with the single use nature of gloves got me wondering about more sustainable alternatives to nitrile gloves. JEOL ships cloth gloves with their probes. I assume these would be acceptable for sample changes and day to day activities. I would keep nitrile gloves on hand for other purposes, of course. But do we really need them for sample changes?

[Nicholas Ritchie]

Many years ago, when I worked in ultra-high vacuum (~10^-10 Torr), we used nylon cloth gloves.  They provide less feel but are good at eliminating finger oils and other contaminants.   I'm not sure where we got them but I found something similar here: https://www.economic.com/cleanroom-supplies/cleanroom-gloves/nylon.html

[Probeman]

JEOL ships cloth gloves with their probes. I assume these would be acceptable for sample changes and day to day activities. I would keep nitrile gloves on hand for other purposes, of course. But do we really need them for sample changes?

Great question.  I think it all depends on the person.

Many years ago when I was taking a class in vacuum technology at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, the instructor had us each place a fingerprint on separate glass slides and then placed them one at a time in a vacuum chamber and used a residual gas analyzer (RGA) to look at the volatiles.

Most of my classmates had sky high readings from their fingers, but I was told I was born to be a vacuum technician because my fingers were "bone dry". 

But in any case I think cloth gloves should be fine for changing EPMA samples, especially since the microprobe isn't technically an ultra high vacuum instrument.