Total Reflection X-ray Fluorescence spectrometry determination of titanium dioxide released from UV-protective textiles during wash

Diego de Dio Ferreira; Tiago Dutra Galvão; Carlos Roberto Appoloni

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2020.109345

Total Reflection X-ray Fluorescence spectrometry determination of titanium dioxide released from UV-protective textiles during wash

Appl Radiat Isot. 2020 Nov:165:109345. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2020.109345. Epub 2020 Jul 24.

Authors

Diego de Dio Ferreira¹, Tiago Dutra Galvão², Carlos Roberto Appoloni²

Affiliations

¹ Applied Nuclear Physics Laboratory, Department of Physics, Londrina State University, Rodovia Celso Garcia Cid km-380, Londrina, Paraná, Brazil. Electronic address: dio@uel.br.
² Applied Nuclear Physics Laboratory, Department of Physics, Londrina State University, Rodovia Celso Garcia Cid km-380, Londrina, Paraná, Brazil.

PMID: 32777738
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2020.109345

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine the release of TiO₂ from six sport garments into the wash water after 1, 2 and 10 washes. For such, Total Reflection X-ray Fluorescence (TXRF) spectrometry was employed for the study of the wash water and Scanning Electron Microscopy - Energy Dispersive Spectrometry (SEM-EDS) was used for the analysis of the textiles. Results showed that the six sport garments released between 0.106 mg/L and 0.352 mg/L after the first two washes and between 0.028 mg/L and 0.337 mg/L of Ti after ten washes. The values found for the Ti amount released in wash water, and consequently into the environment, is much less than other common sources. These results showed the potential of TXRF spectrometry in quantifying Ti in wash water, which is a hard task even for well-established methods. SEM images show that all six samples were weft knitted fabrics, with yarns of approximately 250 μm of width and fibers' width between 9 and 13 μm.

Keywords: Titanium dioxide; Total Reflection X-Ray Fluorescence; UV-Protective textile; Wash.