During COVID-19, many protective items have become known to the public, especially protective clothing with all-in-one protection, which has become the most special symbol during protests.

As mankind's knowledge of viruses and hazards has deepened, protective clothing has also evolved. Now, protective clothing has been applied to a variety of fields, such as firefighting, completion, petrochemical, biological sciences and other industries. There are many types of protective clothing, and medical protective clothing and chemical protective clothing are the two that most likely to be confused. Now, let’s unveil the mystery of these two types of protective clothing from their application scenarios to, material and design and standards.

Application Scenarios

Chemical protective clothing is specifically designed to protect the wearer from chemicals (acids, alkalis, toxic gases, liquids, etc.) damage to the protective equipment, mainly used in chemical factories, laboratories, toxic substance leakage accident scene, fire rescue and other occasions, can effectively prevent harmful chemicals from direct contact with the skin or inhalation of the body.

Medical protection clothing as the name suggests is mainly used in medical environment, it can protect medical personnel from pathogens, infectious microorganisms and the spread of liquids, widely used in hospitals, clinics and other medical scenarios.

Material and design

Chemical protective clothing to withstand “chemical attack”, the material must be “hard core”. These suits are usually made of special synthetic materials with chemical resistance, high temperature resistance, and abrasion resistance, such as polyethylene, polypropylene, and neoprene.

In terms of design, the chemical protection clothing emphasizes the full closure and multi-layer protection: equipped with sealed zippers, tape closure, generally covers the hood, gloves, boots, etc. It is usually one-piece design, to ensure that the wearer in the high-risk environment of the protection of the dead zone.

Medical protective clothing is usually used when there is a need to come into contact with potentially infectious patient blood, body fluids, secretions, most commonly during surgical operations or fighting epidemics. Wears need to wear it for long periods of time. Therefore, these suits focus more on comfort and flexibility, mainly using non-woven fabrics, breathable composites, and focusing on preventing the penetration of water, blood, and body fluids. The design of medical protective clothing is also relatively simple, usually one-piece or split, and does not require a fully enclosed, to ensure that medical personnel work for a long time breathable. Medical protective clothing is also worn with headgear, gloves and masks to protect medical staff from infection by bacteria, viruses and other pathogens.

Standards

Chemical protective clothing has strict international and national standards. At present, the United States, Europe, the International Organization for Standardization and China have well-established standard system of chemical protective clothing, such as NFPA 1994-2007, EN14605, these standard systems cover the classification of chemical protective clothing and various types of protective clothing performance requirements, testing methods.

Currently, the most common international standards for medical protective clothing is the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) standards and the European Union's EN standards. For China, the existing standard for medical protective clothing is GB19082-2009 “medical disposable protective clothing technical requirements,” which was first promulgated since 2003, and was revised in 2009. These three types of standards make clear provisions on the protective performance of medical protective clothing: liquid barrier, microbial barrier and particulate matter barrier, ensuring the effective protection of medical protective clothing.

If the chemical protective clothing is a “chemical master”, can effectively resist the attack of various chemical substances, then the medical protective clothing is a “health care guardian”, to prevent various types of bacteria and pathogens in the medical environment. Chemical protective clothing and medical protective clothing have their own focus on function and design, users should choose according to specific application scenarios to ensure safety and health.