Cleanroom gloves are a critical element of contamination control. Most manufacturing operations will require hand contact with equipment or materials giving high potential for direct (primary) or secondary
contamination or cross-contamination of product.
Cleanroom gloves must therefore provide an effective protective barrier to stop skin particles and viable organisms from the hands contaminating the
cleanroom.

A punctured glove provides a potential route of microbial contamination and in critical operations such as aseptic manipulations the commonly adopted measure to control this risk is for operating personnel to
wear two pairs of gloves. Gloves must also be a comfortable fit for the wearer and have good flexibility and sensitivity to allow precision
operations to be carried out.

In some instances the gloves will also have to act as protection for the wearer and be classified as PPE and for some drug manufacturing operations patient protection standards must also be addressed.
When control of electro-static discharge (ESD) is a key element of contamination control then gloves must be used which meet this requirement.

Re-usable gloves which can be cleaned and decontaminated are available however the great majority of gloves used in controlled environments are
single use disposable items.