KUALA LUMPUR: Meditech Gloves Sdn Bhd (MGSB) has set the initial sales target for its newly-formulated glove using graphene at RM88.62 million this year and an annual demand growth forecast of 50 per cent.
Managing director Dr Effendi Tenang said the company planned to launch graphene surgical gloves and graphene examination gloves this year as there is strong interest in both products from the UK and Europe.
“In fact, it’s almost an impossible task to successfully blend graphene with latex.
“Graphene is a carbon nanomaterial and latex a polymer base medium. It’s like trying to blend oil with water but we have successfully run the first fully blended graphene glove at our factory in Nilai, Negeri Sembilan early this year,” he told Bernama.
Effendi said the breakthrough was made recently through joint research with Cranfield University in the United Kingdom (UK) and with support from the Malaysian Rubber Board.
He said with graphene, gloves are thinner and the biodegradation period is reduced significantly, making it more sustainable for the environment.
“Unlike most nitrile or synthetic gloves that may take up to a hundred years to compose.
“We are proud to declare that our graphene medical gloves are the first of its kind in the world and is in the process of being patented,” he said.
He said that when graphene is successfully engineered with rubber, the properties of rubber improve significantly and add a totally new dimension of applications and possibilities for the rubber industry.
“Although we are strong with medical grade gloves being a producer for 19 years now, with the inclusion of graphene, we are open to the possibility of diversifying into the production of industrial grade gloves,” he said.
Effendi said billions of pieces of gloves are used and discarded globally every year and most ended up in landfills, incinerated or just openly disposed of with disregard for the environment.
“During the Covid-19 pandemic period, used nitrile gloves, in particular, are found dumped even in the open seas which will eventually break down to microplastic and end up in the natural food cycle,” he said.
He said MGSB has also been supplying medical grade gloves internationally and domestically and has recently donated a container of medical gloves to each Turkiye and Syria during the recent earthquake.
MGSB is a wholly-owned Bumiputera company and producer of high-quality natural rubber examination and natural rubber surgical gloves. – BERNAMA
