Abstract Number: 246 Working Group: Aerosol Toxicology
Abstract Nano metal oxides have been proposed as alternatives to Ag nanoparticles (NPs) for antibacterial coatings. Here cotton and polyester-cotton fabrics were sonochemically coated with ZnO and CuO NPs. By varying the reaction solvent (water or ethanol), NPs with different sizes and shapes were synthesized. The cytotoxic and pro-inflammatory effects of studied NPs were investigated in vitro in human alveolar epithelial A549 and macrophage-like THP1 cells. To understand the potential respiratory impact of the NPs, the coated textiles were subjected to the abrasion tests and the released airborne particles were measured.
Very little amount of the studied metal oxides NPs were released from abrasion of the textiles coated by the ethanol-based sonochemical process. The release from the water-based coating was comparably higher. Lung and immune cells viability decreased after 24 h exposure only at the highest studied NP concentration (100 mg/mL). Differently from the ZnO NPs, both formulations of CuO NPs induced IL-8 release in the lung epithelial cells already at sub-toxic concentrations (1-10 mg/mL) but not in immune cells. Calculations revealed that the exposures of the NPs to human lung due to abrasion of the textiles were lower or comparable to the minimum doses in the toxicity tests (~0.1 µg/mL), at which acute cytotoxicity was not observed.
The results alleviate the concerns regarding the potential risk of these metal oxide NPs in their applications for the textile coating and provide insight for the safe-by-design approach.