Antimony leaching from PET plastic into bottled water in Algerian market

Twelve different brands of mineral water were collected from the Algerian market and analyzed to determine the initial antimony (Sb) content in both the PET package and mineral water. Experiments were conducted under different time conditions: 1, 10, to 365 days, different temperatures: 6, 25, and 40 °C, and different bottles sizes: 0.33 L and 1.5 L. The Sb in mineral water bottles varies between 0.50 and 1.12 μg/L for 0.33 L bottles, and 0.37 to 0.77 μg/L for 1.5 L ones. All of these values remain below the limit set by the European Union of 5 μg/L in drinking water. The diffusion coefficient of Sb in PET has been experimentally determined at 6, 25, and 40 °C, after the content of Sb in 1.5 L PET bottles had been determined. In the second part of the study, a factorial design 2³ enabled a model the migration of antimony (Sb) in the bottled solutions and highlighted the influencing effects, such as temperature (°C), time (h), and thickness (mm) for two different time domains encompassing the entire validity period of the product. A simple polynomial function based on a single parameter has been determined with a precision indicator R² = 0.98. This model has the advantage of being simple and fast. The Chronic Daily Intake (CDI) of Sb has been calculated, for adults. It does not exceed the Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) regulated CDI value of 400 ng/kg/day. The CDI values for children increase as the weight of the children decreases. The passage from the maximum child weight to the minimum value in the study increases the CDI of 77%.