Senior sales and product manager, Trelleborg Protective Products, Ystad, Sweden

The purpose of this paper is to give a brief historical summary of the development of modern personal protective equipment (PPE) used for protection against hazardous chemicals in various forms, liquid, gaseous, vapour and/or solid. This type of equipment is essential for and in daily use by the rescue services, civil defence forces and by the industry as well as for non-combat application by the MOD forces.

The author will also debate and draw comparisons between the American standard NFPA 1991 (1994 edition) for chemical (vapour) protective clothing (CPC) and the corresponding European standard prEN 943.

Other topics of great interest, which are discussed and described in this paper, are the reusable type of CPC versus disposable limited use type of chemical protective suits and also the ongoing problems in conjunction with entries into confined spaces.