Surgical masks have been worn by the public worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet hazardous chemicals in the petroleum-derived polymer layer of masks are currently ignored and unregulated. These organic compounds pose potential health risks to the mask wearer through dermal contact or inhalation. Here, we show that surgical masks from around the world are loaded with semivolatile and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including alkanes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), phthalate esters, and reactive carbonyls at ng to μg/mask levels. Naphthalene was the most abundant mask-borne PAH, accounting for over 80% of total PAH levels; acrolein, a mutagenic carbonyl, was detected in most of the mask samples, and di(2ethylhexyl) phthalate, an androgen antagonist, was detected in one-third of the samples. Furthermore, there is large mask-to-mask variability of the residue VOCs, revealing the uneven quality of masks. We confirm that masks containing more residue VOCs lead to significantly higher exposure levels and associated disease risks to the wearer, which should warrant the attention of the general public and regulatory agencies. We find that heating the masks at 50 °C for as short as 60 min lowers the total VOC content by up to 80%, providing a simple method to limit our exposure to maskborne VOCs.
Chronic exposure to aristolochic acids (AAs) from Aristolochia plants is one of the major causes of nephropathy and cancer of the kidney and forestomach. However, the organotropic activities of AAs remain poorly understood. In this study, using LC−MS/MS coupled with a stable isotope-dilution method, we rigorously quantitated for the first time the organ-specific dosage-and time-dependent formation of DNA-AA adducts in the tumor target and nontarget organs of AA-I-treated rats. The results support the proposal that the DNA adduct level is a major contributor to the observed organotropic activities of AAs.
In
this study, we assessed the feasibility of using ordinary face
masks as a sampling means to collect airborne polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons (PAHs). Nonwoven fabric masks can trap three-ring or
larger PAHs at a high efficiency (>70%) and naphthalene at ∼17%.
The sampling method is quantitative as confirmed by comparison with
the standard method of the National Institute for Occupational Safety
and Health. In conjunction with sensitive fluorescence detection,
the method was applied to quantify nine airborne PAHs in a range of
indoor and outdoor environments. Wearing the mask for 2 h allowed
quantification of individual PAHs as low as 0.07 ng/m3.
The demonstration shows applicability of the method in monitoring
PAHs down to ∼30–80 ng/m3 in university office
and laboratory settings and up to ∼900 ng/m3 in
an incense-burning temple. Compared with traditional filter-/sorbent
tube-based approaches, which require a sampling pump, our new method
is simple, convenient, and inexpensive. More importantly, it closely
tracks human exposure down to the individual level, thus having great
potential to facilitate routine occupational exposure monitoring and
large-scale surveillance of PAH concentrations in indoor and outdoor
environments.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.