Single-use or disposable facemasks have been widely used by the public for personal protection against the spread of COVID-19. The majority of disposable facemasks are made of synthetic polymers such as polypropylene, polyethylene terephthalate (as polyester), and polystyrene, and could therefore be a source of human exposure to plasticizers that are incorporated into these polymers during production. Little is known, however, about the occurrence of plasticizers in facemasks. In this study, we determined the concentrations of nine phthalate diesters and six non-phthalate plasticizers in 66 facemasks purchased in the United States. Among phthalate diesters, dibutyl phthalate, di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate, di-iso-butyl phthalate, and butyl benzyl phthalate were found in all facemask samples, at median concentrations of 486, 397, 254, and 92 ng/g, respectively. Among non-phthalate plasticizers, dibutyl sebacate (median: 3390 ng/g) and di(2-ethylhexyl)adipate (352 ng/g) were found at notable concentrations. Inhalation exposure to select phthalate and non-phthalate plasticizers from the use of facemasks was estimated to range from 0.1 to 3.1 and 3.5 to 151 ng/kg-bw/d, respectively. To our knowledge, this is the first study to report the occurrence of phthalate and non-phthalate plasticizers in facemasks collected from the United States.

公众已广泛使用一次性或一次性口罩来进行个人防护，防止 COVID-19 的传播。大多数一次性口罩由合成聚合物制成，例如聚丙烯、聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯（作为聚酯）和聚苯乙烯，因此可能是人类接触这些聚合物在生产过程中掺入的增塑剂的来源。然而，人们对口罩中增塑剂的存在知之甚少。在这项研究中，我们测定了在美国购买的 66 个口罩中九种邻苯二甲酸酯二酯和六种非邻苯二甲酸酯增塑剂的浓度。在邻苯二甲酸二酯中，所有口罩样品中都发现了邻苯二甲酸二丁酯、邻苯二甲酸二(2-乙基己基)酯、邻苯二甲酸二异丁酯和邻苯二甲酸丁基苄酯，中位浓度分别为 486、397、254 和 92 ng/g 。在非邻苯二甲酸酯增塑剂中，癸二酸二丁酯（中位数：3390 ng/g）和己二酸二（2-乙基己基）酯（352 ng/g）的浓度很高。使用口罩吸入特定邻苯二甲酸酯和非邻苯二甲酸酯增塑剂的范围估计分别为 0.1 至 3.1 和 3.5 至 151 ng/kg-bw/d。据我们所知，这是第一项报告从美国收集的口罩中含有邻苯二甲酸酯和非邻苯二甲酸酯增塑剂的研究。