Abstract:

Significance Various types of colorants, chemicals and auxiliaries used during the production and processing progresses of textiles may eventually remain in the commercial products, causing potential hazardous risks to the environment and human health. Therefore, many countries and regions have prohibited or restricted their use in textiles. Furthermore, with the development of science and technology and the improvement of living standards, more attentions have been paid to the safety and environmental protection of textile and apparel, and the concept of green and ecological textiles has gradually gained popularity. Phenolic compounds, such as alkylphenols, were widely used in the textiles, leather, resins, dyes, pesticides, papermaking and petrochemical industries as preservatives, fungicides, adhesives, antioxidants, dye intermediates and flame retardants. In recent years, because of the increasing and stricter detection standards of phenolic compounds in textiles, the existing technologies are facing new challenges.

Progress This paper firstly reviewed the requirements of related textile regulations/standards from the aspects of limited amount of compounds, limit values, recommended testing methods, and risks of different materials. Considering the complexity of alkylphenols with a large number of isomers, this paper particularly discussed the restrictions of different regulations or standards on these substances. From the perspective of the source of regulatory material information, the analysis object of relevant environmental testing standards, and the actual industrial use, this paper provided suggestions on specific testing compounds of alkyl phenols in textiles. At the same time, this study reviewed the development progress of detection technology and detection standards for phenolic compounds, including chlorophenols, alkylphenols, bisphenols in textiles in terms of sample pretreatment and analysis methods. The extraction methods, including extractant, temperature, time and other parameters were compared in detail. Based on the requirements of regulations/standards for simultaneous determination of phenolic compounds, their salts and esters, the research and shortcomings of existing docoments in this field were discussed. As for instrument analysis, various instrumental methods for simultaneous determination of multiple phenolic compounds were described based on gas chromatography, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography, and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry.

Conclusion and Prospect With the gradual improvement of the global chemical management system, as well as the increasing environmental protection awareness of consumers and manufacturers, some problems in the analytical field become emerging. Firstly, with the increasing number of controlled substances and the increasing severity of indicators, the conventional technology usually lags behind the regulatory requirements in terms of compound coverage, method sensitivity and selectivity. The conventional idea is to passively carry out the research of detection technology after the introduction of new regulations and requirements. Secondly, multiple classes and dozens of phenolic compounds were included in the regulations or standards, and most of the existing methods are only limited for single class of compounds. Moreover, since the risk level of the product cannot be fully understood, the detection of all classes of chemicals in ecological textiles leads to the problems of high cost and high time consumption. Thirdly, the convenitional detection model for banned substances in ecological textiles is all about the analysis of target compounds, which lacks the identification and discovery of harmful chemicals that are misused and abused in the supply chain, and the risk identification of new or alternative textile chemicals. Finally, the vast majority of textile chemical safety tests are carried out in the laboratory with large chromatographic instruments or mass spectrometers, however, methods with low-cost and rapid detection are still very rare. In addition, according to the latest research reports, some scholars are conducting extensive and in-depth research in the field of human exposure risk assessment of textile chemical residues. This direction will also be a good combination and development point of chemical analysis and environmental research of ecological textiles.

Key words: textile, chemical pollutant, phenolic compound, alkylphenol, detection standard, analytical method