Status and Challenges of China's Latex Glove Industry   

By Xiao Biane  

At present, China's latex makers still use natural latex as the main raw material. Natural latex is mainly used to produce latex gloves. The demand for it in other downstream areas is relatively small. In recent years, the world consumes about 60 billion - 65 billion pairs of latex gloves every year. Western developed countries account for approximately 75% of the global demand for latex gloves. And the global demand for latex gloves continues to grow. Meanwhile, Malaysia, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries have built a large number of latex glove factories in recent years, resulting in fierce competition in the latex glove market. Latex glove manufacturers have strengthened their efforts in improving raw materials, equipment, technology and product performance, which promotes the continuous development of latex glove production.
   China-made latex gloves feature cheaper and good protective performances and their sales grow steadily. But China's latex glove output is only about 2 billion pairs a year, and China's latex glove export volume is less than 25% of Malaysia's export volume and accounts for less than 10% of the international market. Malaysia is currently the world's largest producer and exporter of latex gloves and has a latex glove capacity of more than 40 billion pairs a year. Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia have large tracts of rubber tree plantations. Their latex glove industries also develop fast. The total latex glove export volume of Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia accounts for about 10%-12% of the international market.
   With the growth of the market demand, China's medical latex glove and examination latex glove industry has gradually exposed its problems. Its production is scattered and is not conducive to centralized supply. Its product structure is single, dominated by powdered gloves which need to be sterilized before use. Its output of powder-free, sterile and smooth medical gloves and examination gloves are relatively small and cannot meet the domestic market demand. Its product quality varies largely. The distribution of orders in the industry is very uneven. Large-scale and well-managed enterprises can usually get orders that exceed their capacity, while others cannot get enough orders.
   In exports, China is facing a hard time. Since January 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has implemented more stringent requirements for medical latex gloves, requiring that latex gloves used in medical examinations and surgery must have a lower defect rate than before. The acceptable quality level (AQL) of examination gloves sold in the U.S. market must reach 2.5 (that is, no more than 2.5 pairs of defective gloves are allowed in every 100 pairs). But in the past, their AQL was 4.0. The AQL for surgical gloves was 2.5 in the past, but it is now 1.5.
   The main raw materials of medical gloves and examination gloves are natural latex and synthetic latex. At present, in addition to laminated molding and the proper mixing of different varieties, techniques used to reduce production costs and improve product performances also include the chemical modification of natural latex, the synthesis of new latex and the development of new additives.
   After natural latex is epoxidized, the air tightness and oil resistance of its dry film will be greatly improved. Polygonal acrylic latex successfully developed recently can retain a high viscosity at a high shear speed. Use of such latex to produce coatings can greatly reduce the usage of thickeners, thereby significantly improving the waterproof performance of the coating films.
   The new water-based polyurethane material features excellent fatigue resistance, excellent wear resistance, high elasticity and high strength. It can be pasted on the inner layer of latex gloves to replace powder lubricating agents such as talcum powder or starch. If it is coated on the outer layer of latex gloves, it can help to improve the wear resistance, softness and breathability. In China, because of the insufficient supply of raw materials, related research was begun relatively late. So, some performances of domestic finishing agents cannot meet the needs of glove manufacturers. Chinese glove makers mostly use costly imported glove-specific finishing agents and thus increase the production costs of the gloves. The Chemistry and Chemical Engineering School of Anhui University used polyether glycol (N220, N240), polyether ternary alcohol (N330), toluene diisocyanate (TDI), dimethylol propionic acid (DMPA), trimethylol propane (TMP) and sesame oil as raw materials to synthesize water-based polyurethane (WPU) emulsion that can be used as glove-specific finishing agent. Now the WPU emulsion has passed the application performance testing and started to be produced industrially.
   China's latex glove producers also face many technical challenges. First of all, removing protein in natural latex is a major challenge for them. The protein allergy emerging in the use of natural latex products gets great attention from the medical community and latex product producers. Malaysian manufacturers have reduced the protein content in latex gloves by improving the leaching process, using low protein latex as the raw material and using other methods such as chlorination and polymer coating.
   In addition, nitrosamines generated by some accelerants added into the gloves are also a big problem. Latex products added with some accelerants can produce various nitrosamines in the curing process. These nitrosamines can be released in the form of sulfide gases or remain in the latex in solid form. Under certain application conditions, nitrosamines in latex products can be released. It is very important to develop and use new accelerants that cannot generate nitrosamines to replace the existing accelerants.