Biver, Turner, and Filella measured antimony in polyester textiles designed to touch skin, and the share that moved into artificial sweat. The articles are a shirt, a fleece blanket, swimming trunks, a microfibre cloth, and another shirt. They are not baby wipes.
Key numbers
The abstract states total antimony of about 125 to 470 µg/g. Table 1, total antimony by XRF, is 471, 185, 286, 125, and 357 µg/g for the five articles. Under the default parameters, about 0.05 to 2 percent of total antimony, or 0.1 to 1 µg/g, was mobilized into artificial sweat. Table 1 extractable antimony by ISO 105-E04, three sequential 24-hour extractions at 37 °C, is 0.402 ± 0.128, 0.904 ± 0.121, 0.480 ± 0.126, 2.572 ± 0.031, and 2.477 ± 0.093 µg/g. The 2.572 µg/g cloth result sits above the abstract’s “0.1 to 1 µg/g” summary. Both figures are kept. The abstract range is the authors’ summary. The table is the sample list.
The authors recommend ISO 105-E04 over EN 1811 for an antimony assessment because the pH is closer to sweat. They do not claim a standardized procedure already exists.
Methods (brief)
Total antimony was measured by X-ray fluorescence. Extractable antimony used artificial sweat, including ISO 105-E04 and EN 1811, with the extraction conditions varied. The paper is about the test, not about wipes.
Evidence fitness
The numbers support a statement about these polyester textiles: antimony is in the fiber at hundreds of micrograms per gram, and artificial sweat mobilized a small share under the tests they ran. They do not support a wipe concentration, and the transfer fraction is not applied to a wipe.
Limitations
Five articles are not a market. One shirt was not new. The license on the opened PDF is CC BY-ND. This page quotes the results and does not reproduce the article.
Related evidence
- Heavy metals in baby wipes
- Antimony
- Determination of heavy metals on the non-woven in wet wipes using ICP-MS
Update history
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