engleski

Impact of Heavy Metals from Textiles on Human Health

Heavy metals are often present on textile materials. The reason for their presence in finished goods can be contamination of the textile raw materials, as well as chemical means and dyes applied in the chemical finishing treatment processes. Raw textile materials like cotton, flax, or hemp may also contain larger quantities of heavy metals due to the adsorption from the environment (e.g. from the air, water and soil). Due to daily contact with textiles of clothes, bed linen and similar products, people may be exposed to heavy metals. A majority of problems arise in the field of heavy metal complex dyes being extracted from the fabrics by perspiration or saliva solutions. Therefore in this research work our primary target of interest was determination of extracted heavy metals from different textile materials. Experiments were performed according to the Öko Tex standard for textile products used in direct contact with the human body. Leaching of heavy metals from textiles was carried out in the artificial acidic sweat solution. After extraction from Croatian textile products made of cotton, flax, wool, silk, viscose, and polyester materials, heavy metals were determined by means of inductively coupled plasma – optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The total amount of present heavy metals was determined after microwave assisted acidic digestion of materials with the 7 M nitric acid. Although the results confirmed that in most cases the concentration of heavy metals after extraction did not exceed the permissible values, in some cases concentrations of particular heavy metals were above the limits given by the Öko Tex. This indicates that certain heavy metals present on the textile products may represent a health hazard to consumers by developing different diseases and cancers, or by causing skin irritations or allergies to sensitive people. Investigated textile samples may also present a potential source of environmental pollution in cases when wastewaters from household washing, industrial laundries or textile industries are being discharged into the environment.

heavy metals; textile materials; ICP OES

Eksperimentalni dio rada je obavljen u Beču na Institutu za analitičku kemiju pod mentorstvom prof. dr. Ilse Steffan te je financiran stipendijom austrijske vlade 467-7/2004., Austrian Academic Exchange Service (ÖAD)