Slip-coated elastomeric flexible articles and their method...

Details Slip-coated elastomeric flexible articles and their method... Slip-coated elastomeric flexible articles and their method...

1996-12-31

2001-10-23

Mosley, Terressa (Department: 1711)

Stock material or miscellaneous articles

Composite

Of silicon containing

C264S211240

Reexamination Certificate

active

06306514

ABSTRACT:

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to elastomeric flexible articles (e.g., film articles), particularly powder-free medical gloves, that exhibit enhanced lubricity (“slip” ) with respect to both dry and damp surfaces, particularly skin or other tissue of the wearer, as compared to similar articles or films that are not treated as described herein. This invention also relates to a process for making such articles. This invention further relates to a method of treating elastomeric flexible articles with a slip coating and optionally further treating with a lubricant composition.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Elastomeric surfaces of articles, in general, exhibit poor lubricity with respect to a dry surface, such as dry skin or other mammalian tissue. These properties are due to surface friction. Additionally, many elastomeric articles or surfaces display poor lubricity with respect to damp surfaces. A high coefficient of friction is a distinct disadvantage in those applications where an elastomeric surface must slide on another surface, such as in the donning of gloves over dry or damp skin. This is particularly important in the use of medical gloves, such as examination gloves and surgeon's glove. These gloves are relatively close fitting in order to provide sensitivity. Further, most surgeons don their gloves after scrubbing up and without having fully dried their hands, so that their hands may be distinctly damp. Accordingly, the elastomeric materials useful in such applications must exhibit enhanced lubricity with respect to dry surfaces (“dry slip”), enhanced lubricity with respect to damp surfaces (“damp slip”), and the requisite mechanical properties. The prior art has attempted various ways to produce powderless gloves which satisfy these requirements.
One prior approach is to halogenate the surface of rubber gloves with chlorine or bromine to make it slippery, i.e., reducing tackiness and decreasing the coefficient of friction of the rubber gloves. In the case of chlorine as the halogen, the prior art discloses the production and use of chlorinated water to treat the rubber gloves. Such methods include (1) direct injection of chlorine gas into the water mixture, (2) mixing high density bleaching powder and aluminum chloride in water, (3) brine electrolysis to produce chlorinated water, and (4) acidified bleach. See for example U.S. Pat. No. 3,411,982 (Kavalir), U.S. Pat. No. 3,740,262 (Agostinelli), U.S. Pat. No. 3,992,221 (Homsy, et al.; treating outer surface with chlorine gas), U.S. Pat. No. 4,597,108 (Momose), and U.S. Pat. No. 4,851,266 (Momose). However, chlorination produces surfaces which have very poor damp slip.
There are other prior rubber gloves having a slip layer bonded to the inner surface of such gloves. Examples of gloves which have an inner layer of elastomeric material with particulate lubricant imbedded therein are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,070,713 (Stockum), U.S. Pat. No. 4,143,109 (Stockum), U.S. Pat. No. 5,284,607 (Chen) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,395,666 (Brindle; together with a surfactant, but ionic surfactants are not recommended), and which disclose surgeon's gloves with various polymeric slip coatings bonded to the inner surface thereof are U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,286,011 and 3,411,982(both to Kavalir et al.; an inner layer of a rubber/resin combination, wherein the resin maybe acrylic-type resins, allowing elongation values of 200% to 700%) ; U.S. Pat. No. 3,813,695 (Podell, et al.; an inner layer of hydrophilic plastic material, e.g., hydrogel polymer), U.S. Pat. No. 3,856,561 (Esemplare, et al.; an inner layer of a copolymer of vinyl or vinylidene chloride and an alkyl acrylate, e.g., copolymer of vinyl chloride or vinylidene chloride with butyl acrylate and acrylic acid), U.S. Pat. No. 4,302,852 (Joung; e.g., inner layer of silicone), U.S. Pat. No. 4,482,577 (Goldstein, et al.; elastomeric article is cleaned, immersed in a concentrated solution of a strong acid, washed, dipped in a solution of an uncured hydrophilic polymer and then cured; articles are described as stretchable to 700%), U.S. Pat. No. 4,499,154 (James, et al.; article is pre-treated in a dilute acid solution prior to applying inner layer; uses specific hydrogel polymers as the inner layer which is then treated with a cationic surfactant or fatty amine) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,575,476 (Podell, et al.; hydrogel polymer inner layer treated with cationic, anionic or nonionic surfactant).
Some of the latter-type gloves experience delamination of the layers or produce a “cobblestoning” effect when stretched, for example, when the gloves are donned. Prior gloves have been made to address this problem. According to U.S. Pat. No. 5,570,475, prior attempts to improve resistance to delamination have included treatment of the natural or synthetic elastomeric base material by an acid priming step and a neutralizing step prior to the polymer coating step, citing U.S. Pat. No. 4,499,154 (noted above). According to U.S. Pat. No. 4,548,844 (Podell et al.), a trivalent cationic salt, e.g., aluminum salt, may be applied to the elastomeric article prior to or simultaneously with the application of the hydrophilic hydrogel polymer so as to provide for improved adhesion of the polymer to the article after curing. Others gloves utilize certain types of polymers as the inner layer to avoid or minimize delamination when the article is stretched or flexed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,082,862 (Esemplare et al.) is identified as an improvement over U.S. Pat. No. 3,856,561 (Esemplare et al.) to avoid the “cobblestoning” effect observed when the elastomeric article is stretched to a large extent, e.g., over 450%. Therein, a blend of polymers each with specific required properties is used. As another example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,570,475 (Nile et al.) discloses copolymers of styrene or ethylene with half esters of maleic acid.
The foregoing differ from the present invention.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a flexible article displaying slip properties with respect to damp and dry mammalian tissue without use of powder lubricants. The article is comprised of a substrate layer having an elastomeric material, the substrate layer having a first surface and a second surface, a crosslinked polymer coating, the coating having a third surface and a fourth surface, wherein the third surface of the coating is covalently bonded to the second surface of the substrate layer and, optionally, a damp slip-conferring amount of a lubricant composition applied to the fourth surface of the coating. The coating is non-blocking, exhibits excellent adhesion to the substrate layer even at high elongation values and also exhibits excellent dry slip during, for example, donning of a surgeon's glove. The lubricant composition confers excellent damp/wet slip during, for example, damp/wet donning of a surgeon's glove.
There is also provided a method of treating an elastomeric flexible article. The method involved in producing the coated elastomeric articles is a multistep procedure which includes (1) forming an elastomeric article, (2) priming the surface of the elastomer with an acidic solution, (3)coating the elastomer surface with a non-blocking, slip-conferring polymer solution, (4) curing the elastomer and the polymer, (5) chlorinating at least the wearer-contacting surface of the coated article, (6) neutralizing the article surface and residual chlorine, and, optionally, (7) treating the wearer-contacting surface with a lubricant composition to enhance the damp/wet slip properties thereof.
An important feature of this invention is that the slip coating exhibits tremendous adhesion to elastomeric substrates even when such substrates are elongated to break. These coatings are prepared from a coating bath composition containing (1) an acrylic-type resin which may contain reactive functional groups such as carboxyl, hydroxyl, amide and methylol groups and which may be a copolymer made using styrene, acrylonitrile and/or an alkylene monomer and which may be

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