engleski

METALS ON TEXTILES AND HUMAN HEALTH

Different metals present on textile materials and textile wastewaters may cause problems during textile processing, be harmful to humans and toxic to the environment. Many recent investigations have proved that metals present on textile materials can cause problems during fiber processing, dyeing or bleaching and that metals have a bad effect on the product quality. Their negative influence on human health is also very well known: damages of organs, disorders in respiratory tract and lung diseases, dysfunction of the heart, blood and blood producing organs, disorders in the nervous system, skin diseases, abnormalities in fertility and pregnancy. Accumulation of heavy metals in body tissues and binding to enzymes may disrupt the functioning of cells, which may also lead to development of tumors or cancers. Special problem present metals in dyes which may be extracted by perspiration and come into direct contact with the human skin. The limits for metals in the environment are stipulated in many standards, while for the textiles there are no strict laws. Only internal standards like Oeko-tex are in use, which recommend the maximal concentration of certain metals present in extracts from textiles. Hopefully those internal norms will soon become an imperative for textile manufactures. For this reason it is extremely important to develop an optimal analytical procedure for monitoring of present elements, with the proper sampling and sample preparation steps. In this work the advantages and disadvantages of different spectrochemical methods (UV-VIS, GF-AAS and ICP-OES) for the determination of many metals (Al, As, Ba, Be, Bi, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Co, Cu, Fe, K, Hg, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, Ni, Pb, Sc, Si, Se, Sn, Sm, Sr, Tl, V, and Zn) in textile extracts will be given with the special focus on the sample preparation steps. Determination of metals in cotton, wool, flax and hemp materials, as well as determination of nickel in metal buttons will be presented.

metals; textiles; health

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