Barrier efficacy of woven and nonwoven fabrics used for protective clothing: Predictive models

摘要

Exposure of skin to pesticides is a major health hazard among agricultural workers. The Environment Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that in the farm sector alone, some 560,000 sites such as farms, forests, and greenhouses have workers who come in contact with pesticides during their workday (US EPA, 1992). Workers commonly wear conventional clothing (long sleeved shirts and jeans or work pants) and occasionally, use disposable protective clothing made of non-woven fabrics when applying pesticides. In general, fabric penetration studies have shown that fabric characteristics, liquid characteristics, and the combination of both are critical for understanding pesticide solution penetration in porous materials (Miller and Schwertz 2000; Raheel 1988, 2000; Lee and Obendorf 2001). Due to the variety and complexity of pesticide formulations and mixtures, as well as the variety of fabrics, there is a need for predictive models to estimate protective clothing materials' performance for screening purposes. Such information may be used to provide recommendations for the types of materials for chemical protective clothing Previous work done in our laboratory reported a predictive model for woven fabrics only (Xhang and Raheel 2003). This research expands upon the previous work and includes a wider range of woven fabrics, a variety of non-woven fabrics, as well as a range of pesticide variables, in an attempt to develop statistical predictive models. Additionally, the predictive models are validated with actual laboratory data.