Toxicology of Industrial Compounds

Figure 22.4 Typical composition of a flame retardant recipe.
D.SEDLAK 313
toxicity. Furthermore the concentration of the active ingredients in the new
matrix textile is much lower than in the matrix water most textile
chemicals are based on. This strategy seems to be appropriate. On the
other hand take the irritant property of, for example, fatty amine based
emulsifier. This property is lost during formulation of the emulsifier in the
textile chemical by homogeneous dilution. The average concentration after
application to the textile is surely lower. But who has information about
the actual form of this fatty amine in the textile. Is it distributed
homogeneously, is it more located at the surface, does it interact with other
substances and even lose its irritant character? Many questions seem to be
unanswered.
Both complex questions—the toxicology of the handling and processing
of textile chemicals and the toxicology of the result of the processing on
textiles— will be discussed by means of an admittedly drastic example, a
flame retardant process. This example is rather representative because an