Migration of pseudoestrogen bisphenol A from various types of paper with thermochromic prints to artificial sweat solutions

Abstract

Thermochromic inks, materials that change color at a certain temperature, are increasingly used on papers and other materials in the areas of design, commercials, and security printing. Pseudo-estrogen bisphenol A (BPA) may be one of their main compounds present in mass fractions of up to several percent. In this work, the mass fractions of BPA in thermochromic prints on seven types of paper were determined. Migration of BPA from the surface of the thermochromic print to artificial sweat solutions was investigated as well. Total amount of BPA in papers with thermochromic prints was determined by an HPLC-UV method with ultrasonic-assisted extraction in methanol developed and validated in this work. Total amount of BPA, which ranged from 0.126 to 0.778 mg/g, was compared with the amounts extracted under the same conditions in two artificial human sweat solutions, which differed in chemical composition, ionic strength, and pH-value. Mass fractions of BPA extracted with artificial sweat solutions were from 0.047 to 0.175 mg/g with respect to the mass of the paper. On average, the mass fraction of BPA was four times less when extracted with artificial sweat solutions than the maximal amount extracted with methanol. The amounts of extracted BPA raise a concern of health risk through dermal exposure to BPA from thermochromic prints on paper.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

Keywords:

• Artificial sweat
• bisphenol A
• extraction
• paper
• thermochromic ink

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Zagreb [grant number PP023].