Xu and colleagues measured antimony in 50 PET-bottled beverages across six categories and then incubated the bottles at 60 °C for 7 days. Antimony after incubation was 1.10 to 10.9 times the pre-incubation concentration. Twenty-one beverages exceeded the Japanese antimony drinking-water standard of 2 μg/L after incubation, up to 4.08 ± 0.11 μg/L. The measurement is leachate in the beverage, not the antimony content of the polymer.
Key numbers
pH was associated with leaching (r = −0.38, p = 0.007). Relative bioavailability in mouse liver was 1.97 to 58.7 percent. Coffee was 1.97 to 13.7 percent. Protein drinks were 41.1 to 58.7 percent. Iron correlated with bioavailability at r = −0.69 (p = 0.02), phosphorus at r = −0.73 (p = 0.01), and tartaric acid at r = 0.59 (p = 0.02).
The Japanese 2 μg/L figure is a drinking-water standard cited by the authors. It is not a beverage standard measured in this paper, and it is not adopted here as a certification number.
Methods (brief)
Commercial PET bottles were incubated at 60 °C for 7 days. Antimony in the beverage was compared before and after. A mouse liver relative-bioavailability assay was run on a subset. The analyte is antimony. Speciation inside the beverage is not reported on this page because the abstract figures used here are totals.
Evidence fitness
The study supports a migration finding for PET-bottled beverages under a warm incubation that is hotter than ordinary storage. It does not support a bottled-water occurrence row, because the six categories do not include plain water, and it does not report the antimony concentration of the plastic itself.
Limitations
Pre-incubation concentrations are not restated here. A numeric range circulated from an earlier extract did not survive a direct text check and is omitted. Other national antimony drinking-water numbers mentioned in secondary notes were not re-verified in the abstract and are omitted. The incubation is a stress test, not a survey of products as sold at room temperature.
Related evidence
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