Nicotine sorption to clothing treated with fabric softener

Abstract

A fabric softener contains surfactants, solvents and other additives. When applied to laundry, these ingredients can coat fabric surfaces which may change sorption characteristics of the washed fabrics to indoor organic pollutants. We studied the changes by measuring the Fruendlich sorption isotherm parameters of undyed cotton, undyed silk, chemically-dyed (black) silk and polyester fabrics for two treatments: deionized water and commercial fabric softener (containing 8% diethyl ester dimethyl ammonium chloride). The isotherm test was performed by 2-L Tedlar bags filled up with 24-ppm gas-phase nicotine. Bags were shaken for 24 h at 25°C. Nicotine was collected by a solid phase microextraction (SPME) technique and then analysed with GC-FID. Cotton exhibited the highest sorption capacity for nicotine while polyester had the lowest for both treatments. Fabric softener application decreased the nicotine sorption of all fabrics by 1-3 orders of magnitude compared with those conditioned with water.