Title: Impact of heavy metals from textiles
on human health
Project type: Bilateral projects with Austria
Croatian coordinator: Prof. Ana-Marija Grancarić, PhD
Austrian coordinator: Ilse Stefan
Project Summary:
The project explored the harmful effects of heavy metals present in textile materials on human health, according to the accepted European Öko Tex standard. It includes a study on the amount of heavy metals (chromium, arsenic, nickel, cadmium, mercury, copper, lead and zinc) that can be extracted with the Croatian and Austrian material (made of cotton, wool, silk, linen, viscose and other materials) that daily produced, processed, sold and used.
Since most of the problem stems from the fact that heavy metals from metal-complex dyes extracted from the material through human sweat during use, the main task is to determine the amounts of heavy metals extracted with different materials according to Öko Tex standard. In order to textiles could be considered environmentally satisfactory and harmless to human health, the test amounts of heavy metals must not exceed the values prescribed by the Öko Tex standard.
