Objectives: Studies by The World trade Organization (WTO) and the Organization for the Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) state that the trade on counterfeit goods corresponds to 10% of the global trade and it is worth 450 billion dollars. In this work we studied the transfer of toxic metals released by some Chinese watches causing significant allergic dermatitis.
Methods: Several samples of dust released from metal parts got collected. Such powders were observed at the Electron Microscope complete with EDAX spectrometer.
Results: In all the studied dust samples we identified the following chemical elements: Cu, Ni and Zn. The SEM analysis has identified two predominant phases such as pure nickel and brass alloy (Cu-Zn).
Conclusions: The first metal subjected to cession and to corrosion phenomena is nickel. The main causes of corrosion in the studied materials were due to the presence of chloride ions. Among the ceased metals found in our study nickel is the most dangerous. Scientific evidence now agree that nickel and certain nickel compounds are toxic and highly harmful to human health they indeed cause allergic contact dermatitis (DAC).