Physical and Chemical Transformations of Silver Nanomaterial-containing Textiles After Use

Published

May 13, 2018

Author(s)

Danielle E. Gorka, Justin Gorham

Abstract

Nanomaterials have been increasingly used in consumer products and silver nanomaterials (AgNMs) especially have been used for their antimicrobial properties. As use of AgNMs in consumer products continues to increase, a corresponding increase in silver's presence in the environment will be observed due to disposal by other processes. To better understand what materials are entering the environment, work needs to be performed to determine the chemical and physical properties of AgNM-containing consumer textiles throughout their lifecycle prior to introduction into the environment through disposal. Therefore, the aim of this work is to evaluate chemical and physical transformations that AgNM-containing textiles undergo during modeled human exposure. A commercially available AgNM-containing wound dressing was studied as our model system. To model this textile during use, the material was exposed to synthetic sweat or simulated wound fluid for varied durations up to 7 days. The textile was extracted and stored under vacuum to minimize extraneous transformations after removal from test media. Both pristine and exposed wound dressings were characterized using a variety analytical techniques including scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), UV-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis), and dynamic light scattering (DLS). Electron microscopy revealed the formation of micron-sized structures on the surface of the commercial wound dressing after synthetic sweat exposure which spectroscopic and diffraction based techniques suggested as consistent with silver chloride. In contrast, wound dressing exposed to simulated wound fluid did not show any large structures on the surface of the material. In fact, the surface was similar, though less defined, than the pristine wound dressing. The release of silver from the wound...

Proceedings Title

TechConnect World Technology Proceedings

Volume

3

Conference Dates

May 13-16, 2018

Conference Location

Anaheim, CA, US

Conference Title

TechConnect World Innovation Conference

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

silver, nanomaterials, characterization, textile, acticoat

Citation

Gorka, D. and Gorham, J. (2018), Physical and Chemical Transformations of Silver Nanomaterial-containing Textiles After Use, TechConnect World Technology Proceedings, Anaheim, CA, US, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=925514 (Accessed January 3, 2025)