title: Silver speciation and release in commercial antimicrobial textiles as influenced by washing.
abstract: The use of nanoscale Ag in textiles is one the most often mentioned uses of nano-Ag. It has previously been shown that significant amounts of the Ag in the textiles are released upon washing. However, the form of Ag present in the textiles remains largely unknown as product labelling is insufficient. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate the solid phase speciation of Ag in original and washed silver textiles using XANES. The original Ag speciation in the textiles was found to vary greatly between different materials with Ag(0), AgCl, Ag2S, Ag-phosphate, ionic Ag and other species identified. Furthermore, within the same textile a number of different species were found to coexist. This is likely due to a combination of factors such as the synthesis processes at industrial scale and the possible reaction of Ag with atmospheric gases. Washing with two different detergents resulted in marked changes in Ag-speciation. For some textiles the two detergents induced similar transformation, in other textiles they resulted in very different Ag species. This study demonstrates that in functional Ag textiles a variety of different Ag species coexist before and after washing. These results have important implications for the risk assessment of Ag textiles because they show that the metallic Ag is only one of the many silver species that need to be considered.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation, University of South Australia, Building X, Mawson Lakes Campus, South Australia 5095, Australia. Electronic address: enzo.lombi@unisa.edu.au.
authors.forename: Enzo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lombi
authors.affiliation: Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation, University of South Australia, Building X, Mawson Lakes Campus, South Australia 5095, Australia; CRC CARE, PO Box 486, Salisbury, South Australia 5106, Australia.
authors.forename: Erica
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Donner
authors.affiliation: National Risk Management Research Laboratory, US Environmental Protection Agency, 5995 Centre Hill Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45224, USA.
authors.forename: Kirk G
authors.initials: KG
authors.lastname: Scheckel
authors.affiliation: Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation, University of South Australia, Building X, Mawson Lakes Campus, South Australia 5095, Australia.
authors.forename: Ryo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sekine
authors.affiliation: Technology and Society Laboratory, Empa - Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Lerchenfeldstrasse 5, CH - 9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland; Institute of Chemical and Bioengineering, ETH Zurich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 10, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Christiane
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lorenz
authors.affiliation: Institute of Chemical and Bioengineering, ETH Zurich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 10, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Natalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Von Goetz
authors.affiliation: Technology and Society Laboratory, Empa - Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Lerchenfeldstrasse 5, CH - 9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Nowack
mesh_terms: D003902:Detergents / Q000737:chemistry; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D012834:Silver / Q000032:analysis*; D013784:Textiles / Q000032:analysis*; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry; D056928:X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy
chemical_list: D003902:Detergents; D014867:Water; D012834:Silver
keywords: Silver nanoparticles; Speciation; Textiles; Washing